MaxBlog

Is this the end of the Internet?  By Mary Mershein

Companies are in business to make money.

Nowhere in financial records is there a place for ethics, morality, law abiding or decency.  Income statements recognize only financial gains and losses.  As a result, corporations are encouraged to maximize profits with actions that may not always be in the best interests of the public. 

This may include dumping pollution in the environment (Feb 2011 Chevron fined $8 billion for damage to the Amazon), hiring labor at slave wages in poor countries (July 2011 Nike employees in Taiwan earn 50 cents an hour) or treating staff so ruthlessly they want to commit suicide. (Jan 2012 Foxconn employees in China) 

Leaders of such companies include the richest people on earth who are frequently admired and respected despite these seemingly immoral transgressions.  In their situation, the end justifies the means.  So why do leadership courses continue to preach ethical behavior?  Why would companies, bent on profit, want ethical leaders? 

The answer is sustainability.  History proves over and over that a single minded pursuit of profit eventually leads to downfall. 

Google’s “Don’t be Evil” philosophy was created in 2004. It was challenged when it went up against China’s censorship policies.  When Google threatened to leave China in 2009 rather than comply with China’s censorship demands, Google’s share price fell by 8%.  

Google backed down and complied with China’s demands.  Later in 2009 Google dropped its “Don’t be Evil” motto.    

In 2011 Google faced censorship demands by India but this time there were no threats by Google to leave the country and no drop in share price.  Now, in January 2012 South Korea is considering adding its own censorship demands.   What country is next?  In the pursuit of profit how far will Google go?  When does this result in a censored internet? 

Will a censored internet even be viable?

Ironically the end of an open internet would mean the end of Google.  

We still need ethics and leadership courses to prevent decisions that result in short-term profits at the expense of the long-term viability of the company. 

What kind of decisions does your company make?

What kind of decisions do you make?

©2012  

Mary Mershein is a Chartered Accountant with a master’s degree in management who believes common sense is our greatest financial analysis.  Additional common sense can be found at www.moosemoney.wordpress.com.

In the now famous Steve Jobs commencement address, he offered advice that you have surely heard before: 

“You've got to find what you love…. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.

And the only way to do great work… is to love what you do.”

All worthy leaders, all great managers, all exceptional employees are doing it for the love. Love drives us. We are energized when we know what we are about and we can focus on what we love – it’s our mission, our purpose, our “gift” to the world. When the going gets tough, it’s the love of our craft, that exercising of our gift, our vision perhaps, that keeps us engaged.

This is why cyberspace superblogger Seth Godin writes continually about art – it’s his shorthand, his code word for “doing what you love,” what you would do even if you weren’t getting paid.

While he was alive, Dutch “post-impressionist” Vincent Van Gough painted over two thousand paintings, including 37 self-portraits from 1886 to 1889 alone.

He could not help it – he had to paint - and yet he did not sell one painting while he was alive. He did not stop; he could not stop as long as he was living.

This is a key to finding out what you love to do – not simply shrug and say “sure I like my work, I like most anything… I’m just a versatile person,” or “I make the best of the situation”

No… the question really is “what can you not stop doing if you are going to be truly you?”

If the “REAL YOU” was going to burst out of your skin like the green hulk, what would the “REAL YOU” be doing – even if you were never going to sell one part of it, never going to make a living from it?

Scott Belsky, author of “Making Ideas Happen” quotes artist Jonathon Harris on one more aspect of acting on our passion.

“Love is the only thing that’s going to pull you through and get you to finish… but here is also a paradoxical and interesting fact: The thing you actually end up making is going to be such a failure compared to the original feeling that you had, the original vision you had. The feeling of it is so pure that you can’t make a real thing that has the same feeling and so you’re inevitably going to be disappointed by it.”

Harris says it’s love that ensures some level of disappointment at the end. And for a time, for the unaware, that may be true. But we can mature, and cope with our feelings of love and imperfection.

After his death from self inflicted gunshot wound, Van Gough’s art was recognized as a national treasure, impacted thousands of artists, and millions of art fans. Self-portrait Without Beard, sold for $71.5 million in 1998 in New York making it one of the most expensive paintings of all time.

It was painted in late September 1889, as a simple gift for his mother, on her birthday.

He did it for love.