When ethical boundaries are redrawn or removed, the addiction to wealth becomes all-consuming. When expediency trumps propriety, it results in an escalating toboggan ride down a mountainside, a descent impossible to stop until the sled crashes from excessive speed and lack of direction. The late ‘90s dot-com burst was evidence enough. Perhaps the hedge funds of today will be the next exhibit.
This scenario results from a flawed rationale. The “objective” or “goal” is an illusion because it is based on an ethically bankrupt premise from which nothing positive can be achieved. The goal can never be reached. There will never be “enough” money; there will never be “enough” power. Thus, the “success” some envision will never be attained. A crash nearly always follows a dizzying display of “success” that is not solidly based in economic and ethical fundamentals. You can be sure the Piper will demand payment.
If everything were fair in life, perpetrators of economic meltdowns would be the only ones who suffered for their impropriety. But life isn’t fair, and the fallout too often envelops good people who played by the rules, who trusted institutions, who are left to survive the rocky times brought on by others. The innocent are made to suffer for the sins of the reckless, the greedy, the cheats, the fast-buckers, the indecent, and the liars. With tough times comes another kind of temptation: the perceived necessity to cut corners, to cling to what you have, to rationalize that traditional values can be jettisoned if the ship is sinking. During this period, one can easily fall into the trap described by William Wrigley, Jr.: “A man’s doubts and fears are his worst enemy.”
The confusion, frustration, stress, and fears that come with financial dilemmas can make even the most ethical of individuals vulnerable to bad choices. Nevertheless, reminding ourselves of the moral path and disciplining ourselves to follow it can sustain us in such trying moments. If there is a silver lining to bad times, it is this: When facing severe challenges, your mind normally is at its sharpest. Humans seldom have created anything of lasting value unless they were tired or hurting.
A discussion involving ethics can be easily misunderstood by some minds. In reality, it is quite simple. The adherence to an ethical code is best defined as how one honors a bad situation or a bad deal. Heaven knows it is easy enough to honor a good deal, or to take advantage of an event or circumstance that is rewarding and beneficial to all sides.
My company, Huntsman Corp., has completed a court trial in Delaware, as I write this. The entire case centered around the other party trying to break a contract with us. Economic conditions changed somewhat between entering the contract a year ago and when it was to be executed, and the other company’s prospects of going forward are far bleaker than when they signed the deal.
One of the lawyers for the company that signed the “iron-clad” contract with us but tried to back out made an interesting statement to the judge. “This is a very tight contract,” she told the judge.
“Therefore, we must look for any loopholes possible to try and extricate my client from honoring the contract.” The judge didn’t buy it and required the company to keep its word.
Unfortunately, this sort of behavior happens on too many occasions. With crafty lawyers, it sometimes works. Most of the time, however, iron-clad contracts simply are what they were intended to be from the start: maintaining a binding agreement between two parties. And how one honors situations when things turn sour or when a deal ends up being more costly than originally thought is how one defines his or her personal values.
In survey after survey, Americans of all stripes—Republicans, Democrats, Baptists, Jews, Unitarians, liberals, conservatives, the rich, and the poor—indicate they are worried about values. I certainly am. Some shout their angst for all to hear; others express their concerns quietly. Civilization has basic standards for proper and right-thinking action. That was the theme of Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten) when it was first published, and it remains so with this updated version.
I don’t have to paint detailed landscapes. Each reader is able to point to his or her own painful experiences starting in 2007. The scenario is neither mysterious nor coincidental: Unbridled greed often prompted unethical, reckless behavior that temporarily turned on the money spigot and fueled the hysteria for many. The shock, anger, and heartbreak took place in Act II.
The twin tragedy is that generosity becomes expendable in times of contraction. The basic urge to share, instilled in us from youth, is dulled by the self-centered instinct to survive. Is anyone surprised that charitable donations decreased in the second half of 2007 and have tanked in 2008? Are we surprised that civility and decency have taken back seats when we are in survival mode? Yet, tolerance and charity also are pillars of ethical behavior. In good times and in bad, our values insist we act graciously and generously.
Most of us care about one another. Human beings have considerably more in common with one another than they do differences. One’s religion, political persuasion, family, financial and social status, or vocation does not hamper the common thread of personal decency running through most of humankind. In spite of America’s fervent embrace of self-reliance, the vast majority of us believe in taking care of one another. Albert Schweitzer said it well: “You don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here, too.”
An ethical code of conduct is a nondenominational religion to which all but hardcore sociopaths can subscribe. Ethical responsibility is the gold standard for determining civilized, decent courses of action. Without established and commonly accept values, the earth turns into a global food fight.
It is important for societies to settle on a set of values common to most and generally applicable to most every instance. There cannot be separate sets of ethics for home, for work, for church, and for play. Ethics belong in the home and the boardroom. And although it may seem that playing fields have changed because of unusual pressures or that rules have become malleable to accommodate unexpected situations, core values remain as solid as concrete.
Because of recent events, I saw a need to write an updated version of this book—not that what I said the first time is no longer in play. On the contrary—it remains as relevant today as it did when I originally wrote it, as unchanged as when I first learned ethical principles six decades ago. It will hold true 60 decades from now, as well.
This version of Winners Never Cheat is presented as a warning that in the darkest of times, temptation will be most alluring. These are times for a mid-course pep talk, a reminder to stay the course, to run the good race, to fight the good fight, to follow the rules we learned long ago. They will see us through hardships and help us make ourselves and the world better off.
Periodic reviews of one’s ethical stances are healthy. Times change, situations change, lives change, technology changes. Situations may be altered; basic values must not.
The simplest rules of good behavior injected into us as children, like vaccines, become the prompts for ethical behavior as adults.
Tough times must not be allowed to vanquish us. We are equipped with the values that have accompanied us since our earliest years. That preparation provides us with the strength to weather storms.
Sail on…
IF THE GAME RUNS SOMETIMES AGAINST
US AT HOME, WE MUST HAVE PATIENCE
TILL LUCK TURNS, AND THEN WE SHALL
HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY OF WINNING
BACK THE PRINCIPLES WE HAVE LOST,
FOR THIS IS A GAME WHERE PRINCIPLES
ARE AT STAKE.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
COMMERCE WITHOUT MORALITY.
—THE FOURTH OF
GANDHI’S SEVEN SINS
Chapter One
Lessons From the Sandbox
Everything we need for today’s marketplace we
learned as kids.
Growing up poor in rural Idaho, I was taught to play by the rules. Be tough, be competitive, give the game all you have—but do it fairly. Th
ey were simple values that formed a basis for how families, neighborhoods, and communities behaved. My two brothers and I had something in common with the kids on the upscale side of the tracks: a value system learned in homes, sandboxes, playgrounds, classrooms, Sunday schools, and athletic fields.
Those values did not lose their legitimacy when I became a player in the business world. Yet they are missing in segments of today’s marketplace. Wall Street overdoses on greed. Corporate lawyers make fortunes by manipulating contracts and finding ways out of signed deals. Many CEOs enjoy princely lifestyles even as stakeholders lose their jobs, pensions, benefits, investments, and trust in the American way.
Cooked ledgers, irresponsibility, look-the-other-way auditors, kickbacks, and flimflams of every sort have burrowed into today’s corporate climate. Many outside corporate directors bask in perks and fees, concerned only in keeping Wall Street happy and their fees intact.
In the past 20 years, investor greed has become obsessive and a force with which CEOs must deal. Public companies are pushed for higher and higher quarterly performances lest shareholders rebel. Less-than-honest financial reports are tempting when the market penalizes flat performances and candid accounting. Wall Street consistently signals that it is comfortable with the lucrative lie.
Less-than-honest financial reports are tempting when the market penalizes flat performances and candid accounting.
Although I focus much of my advice on business-oriented activities, the world I know best, these principles are equally applicable to professionals of all stripes and at all levels, not to mention parents, students, and people of goodwill everywhere.
In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, morality issues influenced more votes than any other factor, but a Zogby International poll revealed that the single biggest moral issue in voters’ minds was not abortion or same-sex marriage. Greed and materialism far and away was cited as the most urgent moral problem facing America today. (A close second was poverty/economic justice.)
In nearly a half century of engaging in some sort of business enterprise, I have seen it all. I continue to ask myself, perhaps naively so, why lying, cheating, misrepresentation, and weaseling on deals have ingrained themselves so deeply in society? Could it be that material success is now viewed to be more virtuous than how one obtains that success? One might even be tempted to believe that the near-sacred American Dream is unobtainable without resorting to moral mischief and malfeasance. To that I say, “Nonsense.” Cutting ethical corners is the antithesis of the American Dream. Each dreamer is provided with an opportunity to participate on a playing field made level by honor, hard work, and integrity.
In spite of its selectivity and flaws, the American Dream remains a uniquely powerful and defining force. The allure stands strong and self-renewing, but never as feverish as in pursuit of material gain. Achieving your dream requires sweat, courage, commitment, talent, integrity, vision, faith, and a few breaks.
The ability to start a business from scratch, the opportunity to lead that company to greatness, the entrepreneurial freedom to bet the farm on a roll of the marketplace dice, the chance to rise from clerk to CEO are the feedstock of America’s economic greatness.
The dot-com boom of the 1990s, although ultimately falling victim to hyperventilation, is proof that classrooms, garages, and basement workshops, crammed with doodlings and daydreams, are the petri dishes of the entrepreneurial dream. In many ways, it has never been easier to make money—or to ignore traditional moral values in doing so.
In many ways, it has never been easier to make money—or to ignore traditional moral values in doing so.
Throughout this nation’s history, a spontaneous and unfettered marketplace has produced thundering examples of virtue and vice—not surprising in that very human heroes and villains populate the business landscape. Yet, a new void in values has produced a level of deception, betrayal, and indecency so brazen as to be breathtaking.
Many of today’s executives and employees—I would like to think the majority—are not engaged in improper behavior. Most of the people I have dealt with in four decades of globetrotting are men and women of integrity and decency, dedicated individuals who look askance at the shady conduct of the minority.
I have known enough business executives, though, who, through greed, arrogance, an unhealthy devotion to Wall Street, or a perverted interpretation of capitalism, have chosen the dark side. Their numbers seem to be growing.
The rationale that everyone fudges, or that you have to cheat to stay competitive, is a powerful lure, to be sure. The path to perdition is enticing, slippery, and all downhill.
The rationale that everyone fudges, or that you have to cheat to stay competitive, is a powerful lure, to be sure.
The path to perdition is enticing, slippery, and all downhill. Moral bankruptcy is the inevitable conclusion.
What’s needed is a booster shot of commonly held moral principles from the playgrounds of our youth. We all know the drills: Be fair, don’t cheat, play hard but decently, share and share alike, tell the truth, keep your word. Although these childhood prescriptions may appear to have been forgotten or lost in the fog of competition, I believe it is more a matter of values being expediently ignored. Whatever the case, it’s time to get into ethical shape with a full-scale behavioral workout program.
Financial ends never justify unethical means. Success comes to those who possess skill, courage, integrity, decency, commitment, and generosity. Men and women who maintain their universally shared values tend to achieve their goals, know happiness in home and work, and find greater purpose in their lives than simply accumulating wealth. Nice guys really can—and do—finish first in life.
Nice guys really can and do finish first in life.
I worked as White House staff secretary and a special assistant to the president during the first term of the Nixon administration. I was the funnel through which passed documents going to and from the president’s desk. I also was part of H. R. Haldeman’s “super staff.” As a member of that team, Haldeman expected me to be unquestioning. It annoyed him that I was not. He proffered blind loyalty to Nixon and demanded the same from his staff. I saw how power was abused, and I didn’t buy in. One never has to.
I was asked by Haldeman on one occasion to do something “to help” the president. We were there to serve the president, after all. It seems a certain self-righteous congresswoman was questioning one of Nixon’s nominations to head an agency. There were reports that the nominee had employed undocumented workers in her California business.
Haldeman asked me to check out a factory previously owned by this congressman to see whether the report was true. The facility happened to be located close to my own manufacturing plant in Fullerton, California. Haldeman wanted me to place some of our Latino employees on an under-cover operation at the plant in question. If there had been employment of undocumented immigrants, the information would be used, of course, to embarrass the political adversary.
An amoral atmosphere had penetrated the White House. Meetings with Haldeman were little more than desperate attempts by underlings to be noticed. We were all under the gun to produce solutions. Too many were willing to do just about anything for Haldeman’s nod of approval. That was the pressure that had me picking up the phone to call my plant manager.
There are times when we react too quickly to catch the rightness and wrongness of something immediately. We don’t think it through. This was one of those times. It took about 15 minutes for my inner moral compass to make itself noticed and to swing me to the point that I recognized this wasn’t the right thing to do. Values that had accompanied me since childhood kicked in.
Halfway through my conversation, I paused. “Wait a minute, Jim,” I said deliberately to the general manager of Huntsman Container, “Let’s not do this. I don’t want to play this game. Forget I called.”
I instinctively knew it was wrong, but it took a few minutes for the notion to percolate. I informed Haldeman that
I would not have my employees spy or do anything like it. To the second most powerful man in America, I was saying no. He didn’t appreciate responses like that. He viewed them as signs of disloyalty. I might as well have been saying farewell.
So be it, and I did leave within six months of that incident. My streaks of independence, it turned out, were an exercise in good judgment. I was about the only West Wing staff member not eventually hauled before the congressional Watergate committee or a grand jury.
Gray is not a substitute for black and white. You don’t bump into people without saying you’re sorry. When you shake hands, it’s supposed to mean something. If someone is in trouble, you reach out.
Values aren’t to be conveniently molded to fit particular situations. They are indelibly etched in our very beings as natural impulses that never go stale or find themselves out of style.
Some will scoff that this view is an oversimplification in a complex, competitive world. It indeed is simple, but that’s the point! It’s little more than what we learned as kids, what we accepted as correct behavior before today’s pressures tempted us to jettison those values in favor of getting ahead or enhancing personal or corporate financial bottom lines.
Although the values of our youth, at least to some degree, usually are faith-based, they also are encompassed in natural law. Nearly everyone on the planet, for instance, shares the concept of basic human goodness.
Human beings inherently prize honesty over deceit, even in the remotest corners of the globe. In the extreme northeast of India, for example, there lies the semi-primitive state of Arunachal Pradesh. Few of us even know it exists. Indeed, this area is nearly forgotten by New Delhi. More than 100 tribes have their own cultures, languages, and animistic religions. Yet, they share several characteristics, including making honesty an absolute value.
Winners Never Cheat: Even in Difficult Times, New and Expanded Edition Page 2
