BACK in the late 1990s there was this Filipino-Chinese fellow named Sammy. Nobody liked him since he was the dictionary definition of a carabao’s backside. The company was too cheap to put in cubicles, so there were long tables on which monitors were set to watch and trade the stock market. No one wanted to sit next to him.
But Sammy seemed to always have winning stock positions, so, gradually, people put up with his attitude to gain information. He was like the guy in college that no one would associate with except when everyone was too broke to go out for beer. In order to have friends, he would buy the beer. The Philippines had a president like that once.
Even down the road when Sammy got engaged to be married and had a restaurant party to celebrate, only 10 or so of us attended out of a group of about 50. I felt a little sorry for him, but not much.
The key to the deal of being fully accepted in any organization—whether you are the boss or the lowest employee—is to make yourself important to the others’ welfare. That could mean financially, or in different respects.
In his 16th-century political treatise—The Prince—Niccolò Machiavelli wrote the following: “It is much safer to be feared than loved because…love is preserved by the link of obligation, which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails”.
This conjures up a dictator who dispenses cruelty and rules by “punishment”. However, the original Italian uses the word pena, which implies more of suffering from a loss of goodwill and support rather than the word punizione, which implies a penalty for breaking the rules in the legal sense.
“Go along to get along” might catch you friends, especially the kind of friends on social media. But only a scarce number of people in any organization are valuable enough that you would want to risk losing their goodwill and support. That is the person you want to be, both to the group and to the people within that group.
Entities like corporations also function like individuals when it comes to this idea of being “loved” versus being “feared”. There are certain listed companies on the Philippine Stock Exchange everyone loves but only at those unique times when you can make a profit owning the stock. Conversely, there are a few that you might want to always own because management constantly makes sure that corporate accomplishments are reflected in higher share price.
Put another way, there are certain companies that only care about investors “loving” them when it is to the company’s advantage. They will shower investors with sweet words, flowers and candy when they want buyers to push the price higher. And then you never hear from them until they need buyers again.
Quality listed companies are constantly concerned that they might lose investors’ goodwill and support, and are “fearful” of being “punished” by the stock market. They are transparent, honest in their assessment of the future and want a healthy and beneficial long-term relationship with your investment. These are the firms that will make you the most money over time.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.