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Q:
With the presidential candidates ranting and raving about
corporate greed—all the while feeding at the
trough—shouldn’t members of the business community be
doing a better PR job explaining the basics of capitalism?
--Charlie
Porten,
Weston,
Connecticut
A:
Not unless they possess the strange and burning desire to
get blamed, scorned, disparaged and excoriated for the
next nine months, or more specifically, until November 4
of this year.
As
high-pitched and, yes, hypocritical as the hate-corporate
rhetoric is right now, we’d wager that it will pretty much
end on Election Day, when the winners, no matter what
their political party, will reembrace a reality that most
of them already know perfectly well.
Business
isn’t the enemy of people. It is people.
And
business doesn’t destroy hope. It creates it.
But right
now, ‘tis the season definitely not to say such things. It
is, instead, the season to foment zeal—i.e., zealous
supporters—by vilifying bogeymen, and no bogeyman is more
convenient, election season after election season, year
after year, than the Corporation.
The mere
word is so impersonal! It conjures images of grim concrete
fortresses and slick skyscrapers, giving politicians free
rein to make pronouncements like one we heard just the
other night: “For the past seven years, we’ve had a
president who has stood up for corporations. It’s time we
had a president who stands up for you!”
You—who?
Who are
these “you” people, we wonder, who aren’t part of business
in some way? Sure, some portion of the population is made
up of students, government employees and workers in the
nonprofit sector.
But let’s
be real. The majority of Americans make their livelihoods
from business—and not all of them are faceless, bloodless,
megabonus-earning executives on Wall Street.
They are
the field workers of Big Oil, toiling in some of the
harshest conditions on earth, from the oil sands of Canada
to the high seas off the coast of Norway.
They are
the immunologists and oncologists of Big Pharma, hunkered
down in their labs trying to find the cure for AIDS and
cancer.
They are
immigrants from
Ecuador
or Vietnam, running the restaurant around the corner or
launching the high-tech venture in their garage.
Our point
is, corporations are not a bunch of buildings. Like all
businesses, they are flesh and blood. They are human
beings.
And most
of the time, they are human beings trying to make the
world a better place for their families and employees.
Now, we’re
not claiming that corporate greed doesn’t exist. We’re not
even going to argue that capitalism is perfect. The system
has its flaws, but no other economic structure is better
at creating real jobs.
OK, off
the soapbox. You didn’t ask for a defense of capitalism.
You asked if business should get out there and defend it.
And here’s
our answer: In this silly season, it’s a thankless task.
When
normalcy returns on November 5 or thereafter, politicians
who want to get anything done and truly want to build a
better society will have to acknowledge that business
isn’t “them.” It’s everyone.
Q:
If you are a new manager with an inexperienced team, what
problems should you be worried about?
--Irina Bandrabur,
Bucharest, Romania
A:
There are two—but first, let’s take a moment to think
about all the things you’ve got going for you.
Young
teams, especially with new managers, have got to be the
most excited, energized groups in business. They’re
usually devoid of the “been there, done that” mind-set
that afflicts so many experienced teams, they rarely see
challenges as impossible and they often embrace change
with gusto.
If only
you could bottle those qualities!
But
inexperienced teams have their issues. The first is that
they tend to be unfamiliar with the level of risk that the
organization can absorb.
That’s why
you, even as a new manager yourself, have to make sure
your people understand the balance between being
strategically bold, which is often very good, and
respecting the boundaries of acceptable risk, which is
always very necessary.
The second
issue concerns you as team leader. Too often,
inexperienced managers like to hire friends, or at least
people who feel make them safe.
Fight that
urge.
Seek out
people who are better, smarter and every way more talented
than you are. They’ll push the organization to new heights
of performance.
And we
guarantee your career will follow.
****
Jack and Suzy Welch are the authors of the international
bestseller “Winning” (Collins). Their latest book is
“Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest
Questions in Business Today” (Collins). They are eager to
hear about your career dilemmas and challenges at work and
look forward to answering your questions in future
columns. You can e-mail them questions at winning@nytimes.com.
Please include your name, occupation, city and country. |
