Where To Find Values

My friend will lose his job soon, like too many others already have in this cruel, exhausting recession. He has worked for the same financial institution since before I met him 23 years ago. He has survived mergers, buyouts, layoffs, and periodic rightsizings. He has risen through the ranks, paid his dues, and been a mentor to many. Now he is 50 and facing the perils of unemployment when his prospects are dimmer than at any other time in his fine, diligent career. His job is being eliminated, but he has an option: He can move to a lower-paying position.

He won’t take the job – not because he doesn’t need it and not because it’s beneath him in status, pay, or opportunity. Especially now, the job would suit all three. However, to take it, he would have to displace another employee, someone he has worked with and trained and whose career he has nurtured for several years. He can stay if his colleague goes. That’s the rub, and he won’t allow this to happen. Instead, he will face unemployment rather than force the same result on someone whose career he has helped build. This is a selfless and courageous act.

Unfortunately, in the higher reaches of business, we don’t hear enough of similar choices. I learned of my friend’s situation within a day or so of reading about others in his industry who also faced choices, though of a different sort. One set of bankers chose to bet against the financial instruments they were selling to their trusting clients. In essence, it was in their interest for their clients to lose money so they could make more.

Another group chose to speculate wildly with other peoples’ money and, when their bets failed, pleaded with the government and received aid to stay afloat. They garnered money and backing, actually a ransom, to limit the risk of the economy plummeting into depression because of their bad judgment and greed. With the aid of funds they would have otherwise never had, they then awarded themselves fat bonuses while presiding over turmoil and massive job cuts caused by their irresponsible decisions.

So as all this spins out, captains of industry keep their jobs and enrich themselves, while my friend, who did nothing to cause the disaster he and others face, pays the consequence of their misdeeds. I suspect we all would have been better off had we had leaders at the helm of our key institutions with my friend’s values and judgment, rather than those of the selfish chieftains whose rash actions caused pain for so many.