This blog post has been brewing in my brain for years. When I decided to go to business school and focus on the hospitality industry for my career, a very big part of my motivation was not financial but humanitarian. I had been out of high school for 5 years, had a few interesting jobs, a few crappy jobs, went to three different colleges for one semester each, ski-bummed for two winters, and felt I was beginning to learn enough about the world to decide on a path.
Being a child of the '60s I had always wanted to do something to make the world a better place. As an adolescent, civil rights/poverty and the environment were the big issues for me. At one point I contemplated law, another thought was marine biology another was solar energy engineer. Then as I watched the world and learned more about how it worked it seemed to me the people who had the most potential influence both good and bad were the entrepreneurs. So I returned to school at CU Boulder, got my business degree (magna cum laude by the way) and had planned to join my father's business, make money and do charitable projects. Well those who know me, know that path was severely altered and eventually (15 years later) I ended up in the wonderful world of catering and special events which I now love.
Along the way I realized if you did not have gobs of money to give to charity, there were still many things an entrepreneur could do to make the world a better place. One thing I realized is very important is providing a good living for your employees and creating an environment where people like to get up in the morning (or evening in our biz) and go to work. Another important aspect is being a good corporate citizen in all matters surrounding your external environment. A third key principal is doing what you can for worthwhile causes, even if it's not cash but goods and services, influence, marketing and PR, etc. So here I am in 2012, working my rear off to reestablish my presence and financial solvency and all of a sudden this week comes along and forces me to write this diatribe before I can get any of my real work done. The brain just has to be purged.
So what led me to this point? My Facebook friends probably know already. The Five alarm fire in Kensington that occurred on Monday night was just three blocks from my apartment. As most know two firemen were killed in the aftermath of the blaze, and as I took a walk that morning I looked into the faces of at least a dozen firefighters who had just found out the tragic news. I cried. I got mad. Really mad. I took my anger to Facebook and tried to spread the word as best as I could. Then Tuesday and Wednesday I had to get back to work.
So now I get to the point I am trying to make. The absentee owners of that building did NOT do the right thing at all in their management of their ownership of that building. When I say "do the right thing" you could say that is totally subjective. Yes, but in most instances I believe that presented with evidence an overwhelming majority will agree on what is right and what is wrong. Is firing someone two weeks before their wife is about to give birth doing the right thing? No. Is firing someone during the holidays for reasons other than illegal doings doing the right thing? No. Is letting a building deteriorate to the point that the Thomas Buck Hosiery Building did before the fire doing the right thing? No. Just this week I found out a former business associate did not pay me a mutually agreed upon amount for a executive recruitment project. Is that doing the right thing? No. Lying, cheating, stealing, misrepresentation, are they the hallmarks of a righteous businessperson? NO!!!
So. What can be done? Many have said to me "Harry, that's the way things are always done in Philly" My response is so what, we have to do better. In my youth Philly was a boring, barren decaying city. Look at what we are now. Completely revitalized and exciting with much better things on the horizon. So what can we all do to improve things? Here are two suggestions.
Do the right thing. Don't cheat people to make a little extra money. Recycle. Be aware that you are sharing this planet with many others and that the Golden Rule goes a long way. Work together with your competitors to make your industry better. Smile. Let merging cars in. Don't be rude, Philadelphians are infamous for this. Don't fire people without truly giving them chance. Be true to your word, not just contracts. That's just a few suggestions.
Second suggestion. Maybe more powerful. Try to do business with those companies and people that do the right thing. Seek out vendors and collaborators that win awards for best employer or most environmentally conscious. Do they cheat to get ahead? How active are they in charity support? Is it for PR or for real substantial support? Ask around, Google them, read their Facebook and Twitter posts. Find the best, because economic Darwinism works faster than biological Darwinism.
One of my favorite questions in life is this: do they ends justify the means? Many justifications for horrible acts are based on the ends justifying the means. My personal take is no, the ends never justify the means. Why? You never get to the end, that's why, because the end is death. There was a bumper sticker/t-shirt a few years back that said: "the one who dies with the most toys wins". I could not disagree more. The one who dies with the most people saying the nicest things about them is the winner because that person's children and children's children will be forever proud of them.
No pictures today, I wanted the words to stand on their own. Hope you got something out of them.
Peace & Love,
Harry
