How Does My Organization Reflect its Values?

November 28, 2018

I work for the Department of Defense (DoD) as a civilian safety officer working installation level radiation and explosive safety for Fort Rucker, Alabama.  My work experience for the past 28 years were with the Army and with the U.S. Customs Service (prior to merging with Homeland Security).  As a young man, I also spent 11 years working in a unionized grocery store chain based in Flint, Michigan.

My thoughts for this writing are to show how my organization portrays its values.  I will attempt to show both good and bad examples from my past work history.  The two links listed below are two short videos on organizational ethics.  I thought that both videos had a powerful message to share about ethical behavior within organizations.

The first video talked about ethical intelligence and the framework necessary for that to be built in an organization.  The top three points the speaker made when comparing a slippage of ethical values down a slippery slope of small sins/transgressions that ultimately led to felonies.  Criticism is about bringing out the best in other people.  Too often in our society we think of criticism as a negative and are unable to accept it in order to improve.  Every man is right in his own eyes.  The speaker urges those in leadership positions to harness their anger and direct it towards positive improvement.  Conversely, only a secure leader is able to apologize sincerely for making a mistake and taking action so that it never happens again.  A good leader also is able to show appreciation to those who are in need of it.  These three traits exhibit more than just strictly ethical intelligence.  I believe it also is part of emotional intelligence (EI).  It appears that it is necessary to have both of these characteristics in order to be an effective leader.

One example I can give you of a secure leader was when I worked for U.S. Customs.  A new set of agency regulations were published on how to handle seized property.  Seized property for U.S. Customs could be drugs, cash, weapons, vehicles, or real estate.  As my supervisor conducted a meeting, fine tuning the procedures, I spoke up and suggested a course of action that would eliminate duplication of work, greater efficiency in storing seized property, and greater accountability for sensitive items.  He paused and then looked directly at me and said, “That’s a good idea and that is what we are going to do”.  A less secure leader would have discounted the idea because it was not his.  I found that to be an example of good leadership and ethical behavior. 

In the second video, the speaker made the statement that had been spoken to him a long time ago: “You have made a terrible mistake, but you are not a mistake”.  Wow.  How many leaders can harness their anger at a mistake and still support his subordinate?  I have a less pleasant example to share when I was a young cashier at a unionized grocery store chain.  The cashiers on our shifts would typically take in $5,000.00 of cash, checks, food stamps, and food vouchers.  The supervisor I worked for was widely known to be hard-nosed to the point of being feared almost universally by his employees.  He was tall, with dark hair, penetrating dark eyes, and an intimidating beard.  His very appearance was ominous.  Our cashier tills were required to be within a dollar of balance when closed out.  It was an extremely difficult standard due to a number of circumstances.  Food stamps stuck together.  People would buy small items and give large bills to cash.  Payroll checks were accepted.  In other words, it was tough.  After three times of being off more than a dollar (but never more than two dollars), I was fired.  The supervisor berated me and told me that I was worthless, I never should have been hired, and that he was glad to get rid of me.  Okay.  Was I lazy?  No.  Was I a top performer?  Maybe.  I was always near or at the top of monetary intake for the cashier tills.  Was I intimidated?  Absolutely.  I was terrified of this man.  I couldn’t stand it when he would stare at me while I was working.  He made me nervous.  The man didn’t seem to have an iota of joy in his life.  He never smiled.

Bottom line, he was NOT a good supervisor.  He had neither ethical intelligence nor emotional intelligence.  He even lied to the company about the procedural violations that I was being terminated for.  My mother was so upset that she attended a union meeting with me to help me get my job back.  I did.  The union got the standard relaxed to three dollars for cashier till closeouts.  I never had another problem with closeouts again. 

As an un-necessary post-script to this story, that supervisor committed suicide about 4 years after I worked for him.  Wow.  I was actually stunned when I heard the news.  I thought he would have been happy.  He drove a nice Corvette and had a nice house.  Material things aren’t everything.  Sometimes it is the things we can’t see that are much more important.

Respectfully,

John Hescott

References:

Retrieved From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLxbHBpilJQ

Retrieved From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUJ00vNGCPE

Reflection Blog on Three of Ben Franklin’s list 13 Virtues

Reflection Blog on Three of Ben Franklin’s list 13 Virtues

 2. Silence:  Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself.  Avoid trifling conversation.

 

I have made progress in this area.  I used to be too outspoken.  I was overly friendly to the point of continuous “trifling” conversations, not to mention trusting unscrupulous characters.  My mother was a big gossiper and could tell you about everyone’s life within the family – good or bad.  That led to me developing bad habits where I engaged in such behavior.  I probably hurt a lot of people.  I probably slandered a lot of people.  I was judgmental.  About 20 years ago, I decided that I needed to change.  I stopped gossiping about people.  I related what I learned from my dad that “stupid people talk about other people, while smart people talk about ideas and concepts”.  I started holding my tongue more and not speaking whenever I had a thought flow through my head.  I started becoming more of a team player in organizations and in group settings.  I began using self-deprecating humor and elevating other people’s ideas.  I became a collector of information, not a disseminator.  What I mean by that, is that I would not pass on “bad” information about people unless I had first-hand knowledge of the bad behavior and it was a necessary instance where I should ethically dispense of that information to someone else.  For instance, as an aviation safety officer (ASO) in the military, one hears all kinds of stories and innuendos about other people doing “unsafe” or “stupid” things in the unit.  I was not careful in my stewardship of this inflow of information and it caused me a number of issues with the command and my peers.  Lesson learned the hard way!  As my communication skills improved, my emotional intelligence (EI) also improved.  Is there room for improvement?  Certainly.  Today, I would align with Ben’s virtue of silence. 

 

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e., Waste nothing.

 

I chose this virtue because as in the example above, I did not always follow that guidance.  I used to be tremendously in debt.  I owed for everything and despite a good income, couldn’t figure out why I was always “broke”.  Instant gratification along with pressing necessities in life contributed to my financial woes.  I have been financially destroyed at 4 different points in my life.  I never declared bankruptcy, accepted welfare, or received unemployment.  I did borrow some money from my parents, but I paid that debt back.  Learning a new way seemed to be essential. 

 

After my fourth financial disaster, I received some advice from a friend at work.  He was older, wise, and financially stable.  He suggested two books to get me started on my road to recovery.  I read Robert Allen’s “Multiple Streams of Income” and Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”.  I consumed those books and vowed to change my habits.  I also met my wife about this time and she is fantastically frugal and a great bargain shopper.  I cleared out my debt except for my mortgage.  I changed my buying habits.  I saved to pay cash for cars rather than loans.  I saved money to purchase items rather than put it on a credit card.  If I ever had to put something on my credit card, the balance was paid for immediately before the end of the billing cycle.  I am not rich today, but I own 13 homes (with only 1 home carrying an outstanding mortgage balance), I have money in the bank, money invested in the stock market and 401ks, and zero credit card debt.  It is never too late for anyone.  Prior to reading those books (and I have since read many more), my financial education from my parents consisted of: “Get a good job.  Put money in the bank.  Pay your bills on time”.  That was it.  In today’s world most of us need more than that.  This virtue is another that I am living now.

 

6. Industry:  Lose no time.  Be always employed in something useful.  Cut off all unnecessary actions.

 

I have never been lazy.  However, I have wasted many years of my life in unsatisfying jobs, relationships, and schools.  Why do I describe it as wasted?  A lot of my personal choices were not good ones.  Therefore, I became a bit of a late bloomer.  My plan to overcome my late start in life was to be in Ben’s words “industrious”.  I worked hard on my financial condition, my living arrangements, my job, and my education.  I have learned how to paint, drywall, lay carpet, install plumbing, work electrical issues, and better lawn maintenance practices.  I am also a planner.  I make lists and stick to accomplishing those items on it by priority.  My hard work has paid off, but I am not going to stop being industrious.  I have a goal of finishing my Master’s Degree after starting and stopping it three different times.  I want to retire within the next couple of years with my remaining mortgage paid off.  I have further plans for my two primary residences.  I continue to work on my rental properties.  People have asked me, “Won’t you get bored when you retire”?  My answer is, “No”!  I have plenty of things to do.  I have properties, boats, trailers, vehicles, a motorhome, and multiple yards to maintain.  If I get bored, I will go golfing, fishing, or hunting.  I also like to read.  I play chess on a master’s level.  I will not ever be bored because there is always something to do.  I have made my life path more difficult because of the choices that I made in my early years.  However, a lack of industry was never one of my faults.  I always played sports in high school and practiced my skills diligently.  I also became a black belt in martial arts because I wanted to.  I played piano when I was younger and now, I think that I want to learn how to play the guitar.  I have never been described as “lazy”.  These are examples of how my life aligns with this virtue.

 

Respectfully,

 

John Hescott

 

Reference:

Ben Franklin’s List of 13 virtues

Is Marketing Evil?

This reflection blog is prepared with my thoughts and analysis of Dr. Ferrell’s article, “Marketing Ethics”.  The general topics to be addressed will be bolded below.  One last requirement before we dive into this:  The reader must enjoy reading the content. 

 

Guidelines.

“Overbilling clients, deceptive sales methods, fraud, antitrust, and price fixing are all marketing ethics risks” (Ferrell).  I think that Dr. Ferrell is lumping quite a few areas simply upon the marketing aspect of an organization, but for the purposes of this discussion, we accept her premise.  Would ethical guidelines and training make an organization behave ethically?  I don’t think that ethical guidelines make as much a difference to marketers as the public would want to believe.  Ethics within an organization are going to start with individuals and the slowly percolate upward into the organizational culture.  However, if rewards are freely given for performance and not “doing the right thing”, then the risk of unethical behavior will increase. 

 

Balancing Success with Ethics.

Does an organization feel that it has to win at all cost?  Apparently many do.  “The rewards for meeting performance goals and the corporate culture, especially for coworkers and managers, have been found to be the most important drivers of ethical decision making” (Ferrell).  Winning the Super Bowl is a financial bonanza for the winning team.  Based upon that, there is a cutthroat culture within the NFL.  Every single NFL team has been fined, lost draft picks, or suffered personnel suspensions based upon violating NFL rules.  The old adage, “If you are not cheating, you are not trying”, seems to apply here and is what makes balancing the need to win with ethical behavior a difficult thing to accomplish.  If an ethical, but poor performing marketing manager is admonished for his performance, while his unethical colleague gets praise for being a high performer, what is the message that is being sent out by leadership?

 

Tracking.

I was disappointed that Dr. Ferrell’s article did not address tracking the buying habits of consumers without their knowledge or consent.  It is a simple right or wrong answer and it is definitely wrong.  Let me share with you an example of how deeply technology has been used to undermine our privacy, and how marketers are using it to their own ends.

 

My example will be broken into two parts.  The first part is easy to understand, while the second appears to have no easy answer.  I was overseas and sent an email to my wife discussing how we needed to upgrade from a gasoline-powered motor home to a diesel-powered motor home.  Immediately, she was inundated with ads regarding deals on motor homes, every time she signed into the internet.  While the filters for my overseas location were stronger, I too began to get ads regarding diesel motor homes.  All of this happened without running a single search with an online platform.  Of course, one will say that personal information is sold on the internet.  Okay.  But, reading and acting upon someone’s email?  Is that ethical?

 

The second part is even more troubling.  My wife and I had a conversation in our house without being online or on the phone.  We talked about what it would be like to buy a fabulous house in a country like Belize (Central America), where a $500,000+ home could be purchased for well under $100,000.  We both started getting ads for great real estate deals in Belize.  Again, this was before any online research had been performed.  Now, I ask the reader, how did that happen?  I don’t want to go out on a tangent and give my theories about it, but simply to say that tracking of consumer information is wrong and it violates our 4^th Amendment rights as U.S. Citizens.

 

Leadership Plans.

Communication is key.  Placing ethical leaders in key positions is another way to have oversight on an operation and in doing so, preventing unethical behavior.  Dr. Ferrell cited Jeff Immelt as a leader who gets it.  According to Mr. Immelt:  “One thing that keeps me up at night is that among the 300,000-plus GE employees worldwide, there are a handful who choose to ignore our code of ethics.  I would be naïve to assume a few bad apples don’t exist in our midst” (Ferrell).  

 

Dr. Ferrell cited Jeff Immelt’s words to hold his company up as an example of good ethical conduct and intent.  Is that a joke?  Jeff should probably look in the mirror to find unethical behavior.  How about making huge money off of trade deals with Iran, while Iran was busy killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq?  Is that ethical Jeff?  Or, because GE was one of former president Obama’s favored companies, GE made billions and paid no federal corporate tax?  Is that ethical?  Do good intentions outweigh an organization’s actions?  The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  Personally, I don’t buy GE products anymore.  They have veered away from being an American company to a global company.  Good for them.  People ought to know where a company’s loyalty is before they spend their hard-earned dollars on their products.  If they know where a company stands and still choose to buy their products, then good for them.

 

Conclusion.

I would like to conclude this foray into marketing ethics by saying that in our instant gratification society, it appears to be easier and more likely for people to choose the easy wrong versus the hard right.  What does that mean?  It means that human nature plays a big part in the ethical conduct of organizations.  If one feels that taking shortcuts is easier, more profitable, more rewarding, and there is little chance of being caught, they will do so.  Not everyone would do so, but a good number of people would.  Unpopular oversight can help as can extensive corporate investment in ethical training.  I compare ethical training to safety training.  Everyone recites the proper words regarding safety, but without constant reinforcement, the urge to do the right and safe thing diminishes.  It is the same with ethical behavior in an organization.

 

V/r

 

John D. Hescott

 

Reference:

 

Ferrell, Linda (Unknown) “Marketing Ethics”

Is Affirmative Action Ethical?

Is Affirmative Action Ethical?

As one who has been discriminated against, I find strawman arguments and tenuous reasoning are used to support LaFollette’s (The Practice of Ethics) view that affirmative action is ethical.  There are so many points of disagreement in his book that I can hardly list them all without writing a major thesis on it.  I will give it a shot point by point.  In fact, this sort of touted high-level reasoning is one of the main reasons that I have a healthy skepticism of intellectuals who possess a liberal point of view.   I find that they cherry pick their data while ignoring evidence that may go against their assumptions.

While arguing about discrimination, LaFollette argues about “Blacks have been subjected to systemic discrimination over centuries; whites have not been” (LaFollette, p. 72).  Untrue.  There were over 5 million whites captured and taken into subsequent slavery by Muslims.  In Russia alone, the vast number of white slaves (nearly all Slavic peoples) taken by invading Muslim armies led to the English word for “slave”.  This slave trade was centered on the Crimean khanate which was part of the Ottoman empire.  “Described by Christians as the ‘heathen giant who feeds on our blood,’ the khanate is estimated to have enslaved and sold ‘like sheep’ some three million Slavs – Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, and Ukrainians – between 1450 and 1783” (Ibrahim, 2018 p. 280).  That doesn’t even account for the remaining number of Western Europeans that were also taken into slavery.  A few things need to be pondered about these facts.  First and foremost, all races on our planet have been conquered and/or enslaved by other peoples, so to single out American blacks as a unique experience is selective reasoning.  Second, the timeline in which the enslavement of white Europeans took place, lasted far longer than the number of years that slavery existed as an institution in North America.  Finally, the very same Muslims who were enslaving white people of Europe also enslaved millions of Africans as well.  In fact, the Muslims were the main clearinghouse (sellers) of slaves to the Americas.

LaFollette than touches upon the white privilege that has become popular with the political left. “The rich can harm the poor in a way and to a degree that the poor cannot harm the rich” (LaFollette, P. 72).  The issue at hand is racism and not economic status.  Plenty of whites are hurt by rich people and/or organizations and can do nothing about it.  I am not even going to cite a reference to say that this point is wrong.  I will give an example from my family history that gives lie to the statement by LaFollette that this is a racial issue.  It also debunks the ridiculous white privilege theory.  My great-grandfather owned a business in Flint, Michigan before the great depression.  It was in a busy commercial district.  It was a general store, had a restaurant in the back, and had gas pumps in front of the establishment.  When the great depression hit, my great-grandfather had less than a year to pay off the business loan.  During one of the bank runs during the depression, the bank called in his note and he was unable to pay the balance of the loan and he lost his business to the bank.  The banking laws have been changed since then and it is illegal to call in loans that are being paid on time.  I want LaFollette to explain how white privilege or some sort of hidden financial advantage of being white protected my great-grandfather.  My family never recovered financially, and we grew up on the borderline between middle class and poor.  Are there instances of wealthy families passing wealth, assets, and opportunities to their children?  Certainly.  Would a black family that is wealthy do the same?  They can and they do.

There is no such thing as white privilege.  One may think so if one is black and buys into the victimology mindset that is constantly peddled to young blacks by the American left.  It is to their advantage that blacks remain at the bottom of society's totem pole.  It ensures a sizable number of blacks voting Democratic to fix their status.  It will never happen that way.  The only way for blacks to shake off the victimology stigma is to desert the described “Democratic Plantation” and start embracing freedom and equality.  Why do blacks from the Caribbean seem to do well in our society?  It is because they are embracing the freedom opportunity that this country offers without the baggage of the victimology mindset.  With true freedom, unencumbered by meddling government and left-wing race provocateurs, comes greater personal responsibility for blacks.  Suddenly, they have to learn how to swim or drown.  It has been 45 years since President Nixon signed affirmative action.  There have been some positive gains, but overall the positives do not outweigh the negatives. “Today, the statistics on black and white inequality are so unchanging that they can be recited by rote: The black unemployment rate holds steady at double the white unemployment rate; the median net worth for black households is about 7 percent of white households; annual per capita income for blacks is 62 cents for every dollar of per capita income for whites” (Slate. February 10, 2014).  While I rarely agree with anything the Slate writers publish, this is a similar comparison to a Consequentialist and a Deontologist coming to the same conclusion about an ethical action but using different reasoning to arrive at their positions.  The Slate author is saying that affirmative action isn’t working, but for different reasons that I think.[1]  Slate is using the racist argument saying that affirmative action isn’t resolving that, and therefore it doesn’t work.  I take the position of the golden rule; “two wrongs do not make a right”.  Better deserving candidates for jobs or schools are denied simply because they were born of the wrong race.

I am 1/8 Native American.  My great-grandfather on my father’s mother’s side of the family was a Frenchman from Quebec that married a full-blooded Native American.  Subsequently they migrated into United States in the 1880s.  I was researching my family history while I was in high school.  I had dreams of getting “free” education and a leg up in the job market by claiming minority status.  My father told me that I was not going to do so……ever!  He told me that I was going to make it in life based upon my character and my abilities, not upon family ancestry.  Taking my father’s guidance, I always claimed Caucasian on job applications.  I have been the victim of reverse discrimination multiple times during my life as a result of this choice.  Is that right?  My life may have taken a quite different path than what it has.  Maybe I would have ended up in an awesome job and become quite wealthy.  I have struggled to progress from growing up poor to a place where I can be considered upper middle class or “member of the UMC” as Bob Seger sang about.  With all of that, I am happy that I chose the route that I took and haven’t had to have others wonder whether I was deserving of my accomplishments, or whether I achieved them due to a protected status.

Respectfully,

John Hescott

References:

LaFollette, Hugh. (2007) The Practice of Ethics. Malden: Blackwell Publishing

Slate.  (February 10, 2012). “The Massive Liberal Failure on Race Action”  Retrieved from:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/features/2014/the_liberal_failure_on_race/affirmative_action_it_s_time_for_liberals_to_admit_it_isn_t_working.html#cx

Ibrahim, Raymond. (2018) Sword and Scimitar. New York: Da Capo Press, Hachette Book Group

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[1] Interestingly enough, (and possibly ironically!) after I wrote my comment that I didn’t agree with Slate much and that I didn’t agree with the arguments presented in their article, I found the following comment at the end of their article.  “I find the tone of this series to be deeply annoying – ‘privileged white liberal discovers black people and realizes history doesn't fit a tidy narrative!’   A lot of liberal white folks don't live in a suburban bubble, and don't need the lesson, thanks” (LaFollette Progressive).