Blog posts

Chutzpah and Humility

From stories revolving around the likes of Enron’s Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling and Bernie Madoff’s giant Ponzi scheme and narratives about “The Greed of Wall Street,” many believe that “CEO” is just another four-letter word!  Truth be told, there are more than a few unscrupulous CEOs who use their power and wealth to do things that if not illegal, are at least arguably immoral.

“You have to skate to where the puck is going.”
Wayne Gretzky - Hockey legend

“Turbulent?”

The high schooler was puzzled. How could his grandfather dismiss these modern times as merely turbulent when clearly everything was flat-out crazy?

His grandfather reiterated that while the world has grown increasingly chaotic over the last several years, he remembered times that were actually worse. Far worse.

I was recently asked to address a group of 100 attorneys as they did their annual planning retreat. They wanted me to address the cultural elements at Cascade Engineering in hopes of stimulating their thinking about how they could improve their culture. I was flattered that they asked a manufacturer to address attorneys since these two types of organizations are quite different. I asked if I could include “… and things that matter” in the talk. Why? Because culture is so much more than the “rules of the road” in the organization.

Purpose and Profit are often thought of as two ends of a spectrum or not even related. After all, business has only one purpose: to make as much profit for its owners as possible according to Milton Friedman, the 20th Century economist to whom many ascribe our current thoughts about the modern corporation’s role.

This blog will demonstrate that Friedman didn’t get it wrong, his pronouncement just didn’t go far enough.