ARGUMENTS

I have never won an argument. Neither have you. No one ever wins an argument. Arguments are not about truth, right, value or any other positive issue. Arguments are about control. If I lose control during an argument, I lose. If I gain control during an argument, I still lose. The person I control may do what I force him to do but he will never give me what I need or want.

We seem to reserve our most obnoxious arguments for the people we love. When you think about it, this actually makes sense. We invest the most energy and the biggest share of our personalities in the people we love. When they act in ways that annoy us, we take it personally because our relationship with them is so personal.

When I was young, I noticed that the people I loved did not give me the respect that I deserved when they argued with me. As I got older, I noticed that I did not give them the respect that they deserved when they argued with me. As I got wiser, I realized that I did not give them the respect that they deserved because I am arguing with them.

I also realized that I never really win an argument with the people I love. To the best of my recollection, most of my arguments with the people I love end with me giving in. (I am sure that they recall the outcomes differently.) While I know that giving in is the right thing to do since I am bigger (at least physically) than the people I love, giving in never seems to feel right. First, the other side never seems to appreciate that I give in. Worse, giving in means LOSING and I hate to LOSE!

Even when I force the other side to give in, I do not feel right. If they do what I force them to do, they never really do what I need or want them to do. Worse, I always feel like a bully when I win.

Once I realized that I never really win an argument with someone I love, I realized that I never really win an argument with anyone. To win an argument, I must defeat the other side. The other side will never give me what I need or want after I defeat them.

So why should I argue with anyone?

COMPETITION WITHOUT COMPETITORS

Winning feels so good because it fulfills my instinct to obtain food by killing it. I am not that hungry. Making sure the other person loses is not about winning. It is about beating. “What is the challenge?” is a higher level question than “Who is the competition?” When all is said and done, the only real competition is me.

One of my first advisors was an accountant who became a partner in his firm about the same time that I started my business. We were approximately the same age, at similar stages in our careers, and we enjoyed brainstorming the alternative approaches I might take to reach the next level of my company’s growth. I enjoyed the camaraderie we shared, but I particularly liked the way he fed my ego. On numerous occasions he let me know that he considered me superior in many ways to other business people he counseled. The prime trait that he stroked was my seemingly limitless drive to succeed.

About five years into our relationship, I had a particularly nasty conflict with a competitor that ended in a major defeat. We had analyzed what had happened from a variety of perspectives, when he surprised me by saying, “You’ve lost it,” referring to my drive for success. In the context of my recent defeat, I felt particularly hurt.

I thought about his comment on and off for a long time. Once I had the opportunity to gain some distance from my pain, I realized that he was right, at least from one perspective. The very negative experience I had had was the culmination of many experiences that led me to conclude that I really did not want to beat my competitors. No matter how strong, smart and driven I was, there was always someone who was stronger, smarter and more driven. Even if there were not, there was always someone who was willing to act in an underhanded way to achieve success. To beat that competitor, I would need to stoop to his level or lower. As my advisor noted, I just was not that driven.

From another perspective -- perhaps a better perspective -- the issue was not a limitation in my drive, but a difference in my drive. I was driven not to beat the competition, but to be the best person I could be. This drive had little to do with how good (or bad) the competition was. It had everything to do with how good I could be. In one sense, I chose to ignore the competition. In another, I set my achievements as a benchmark for future improvements. My challenge was not to beat others, but to best myself in the literal meaning of the phrase. Does framing the issue in this way indicate that I have less drive than he had thought? I do not know. Nor do I care.

NOSTALGIA

The “good old days” may be old, but they were not particularly good.

I enjoy reminiscing about the past on occasion like anyone else. Many good things happened in the past and talking about those positive experiences reminds us of the joy we experienced when they occurred. It also helps us remember and honor the people we loved who are no longer with us. Finally, it strengthens the bonds we have with the people who shared those experiences and who continue to be important in our lives.

I do not believe, however, that the past was particularly better that the present. Nor do I believe that the people who lived in previous generations were particularly better than the people who live in this generation. Nor do I have any desire to bring back the past.

When people talk about the “good old days,” they forget that they have changed dramatically over the years. Life was simpler in the past because we were younger, had fewer and less important responsibilities, saw things from a simplistic viewpoint, and had a lifetime to anticipate.

As mature adults, our responsibilities are much more pressing, we see things in a more complex and realistic manner, and we begin to anticipate our own mortality. What we see is different because we are different. What we see appears to be less good because we become more cognizant of all the terrible things that human beings do to each other. The people we know seem to be smaller than the people we knew as children because we are bigger, yet more aware of our own frailties and the frailties of others.

The good old days were not that good. Of greater significance, today is less good that it should be, and we each have the ability and the responsibility to make tomorrow better. Nostalgia in moderation is fine. I prefer to spend my time on making tomorrow better than today and a lot better than yesterday and the day before.

STARS

The star that appears dimmest to us may be the biggest and the brightest in absolute terms.

When we look up at the sky on a clear night, we see thousands of stars. Some appear to be very bright. Others are less bright. Some are very dim. If we did not know better, we would think that the bright stars are the big, important stars while the dim stars are the small, unimportant stars.

But we do know better. We know that the bright stars may really be very small stars. They appear bright to us on earth because they are relatively close to our planet. We also know that the very dim stars may be huge stars. They appear very dim to us because they are so very far away from us.

What is true about stars is also true about people. Some people may appear to be less bright and less important to us because they are so very far from where we are as people. But are they really less bright and less important?

To the Almighty, all stars are equally close. He knows how big and how bright each one is in absolute terms.

To the Almighty, some people are closer than others. He still knows how big and how bright each of us is in absolute terms. More important, the people who are the biggest and the brightest to us may not be so big and so bright to Him. Even if they are, they may not be as near to Him as are others who are smaller and less bright.

CONSENSUS

Consensus concerning action is much easier to achieve after consensus concerning mission has been achieved. Consensus concerning mission is much easier to achieve after consensus concerning values has been achieved.

As a consultant to many organizations during the early years of my career, I noticed that making a decision, any decision, was extremely difficult and rarely occurred in some organizations. In contrast, we made decisions easily in my organization, implemented them quickly, and remained open to modifying them as conditions and our knowledge base grew.

At first, I thought that my organization was different because I was such a dominant figure in the early years of my organization. Perhaps we made decisions quickly, because everyone was afraid to contradict me and my decision became THE decision by default. As my organization became larger and more complicated, I found that decision making did take longer than previously but still occurred rapidly compared to other organizations of similar size and scope. What was different about us, I wondered.

In retrospect, the difference clearly lies in common, well-articulated values in my organization. Over the years, we developed aphorisms to codify the values that became commonly used throughout the organization.

In addition to well-articulated values, we have developed and adapted a common mission that is congruent with our values. What we want to accomplish individually and collectively is driven by our common mission that is built on our common goals. Discussion about how to respond or how to initiate always occurs within the framework of the mission and the underlying values. This focuses and narrows our potential actions and makes decision making easier and quicker.

GENIUS

Some of the most brilliant ideas seem so simple and totally self-evident – but only after they have been articulated.

When most people think about genius, they think about complex theories that few people understand. Einstein’s theory of relativity is a classic example. Almost a hundred years have passed since the theory was first advanced, yet few people understand it except in the most rudimentary fashion.

So few people understand Einstein’s theory of relativity because the mathematics upon which it is built is so complex. The theory cannot be understood without first understanding the mathematics. Since few people understand the mathematics, few people understand the theory.

A more common and practical form of genius does not require advanced training in any discipline. In fact, brilliant ideas are frequently promulgated by people with very limited formal education. The concept of the assembly line, which revolutionized manufacturing of complex machines in the beginning of the 20th century, for example, was perfected by Henry Ford, a third-grade dropout. Once articulated, the concept is so simple that it seems self-evident, but thousands of very intelligent, highly educated people prior to Henry Ford failed to recognize this simple solution to the problem of assembling complex machinery like cars.

Genius of this type not only does not require advanced training, but also may actually be inhibited by advanced training. People who have advanced training tend to interpret issues and problems through the lens of their professional knowledge. By definition, professional knowledge is composed of vast quantities of information regarding a particular discipline that is organized and codified from a particular viewpoint. High- quality professional solutions are facilitated by this professional knowledge. Brilliantly simple alternative solutions may be inhibited by this professional knowledge.

I am not against professional knowledge, and I support professionals in what they do. I also encourage professionals to stop looking at problems from their professional perspectives from time to time and to start looking for simple alternative solutions that conceptualize the issues and problems in a new way.

HONESTY

Honesty is not enough. Selling a mediocre product, service or experience at market value is honest, but it is lacking in integrity. Integrity is a different and higher dimension than honesty.

Honesty has a reputation of being a difficult standard to achieve. That reputation is well deserved. Too many people do not attain it too frequently. Despite the difficulty and relative rarity of honesty, it is just not enough. The pursuit of excellence requires more than honesty. It requires integrity.

Honesty is one value of many values that we have. In many situations, the value determines our response. In other situations, it is not applicable and another value determines our response. For example, if an elderly person asks for help, our value of compassion is the determining value. In this type of situation, only one value is applicable to the choice we face, and that value is the basis (or should be the basis) of our response to the situation.

At other times, two or more values apply to a particular situation. Sometimes these two values complement each other in a way that enables us to honor both values simultaneously. For example, if we determine that one of our young children has taken something from a friend without permission, we will teach the child to return the object in a manner that is firm but not overly so. We teach the child this lesson because we value honesty not only in ourselves but also in others, especially our children. We teach this lesson without resorting to excessive harshness because we value compassion for others, again especially for our children.

At other times, values conflict with each other. We can honor one or the other, but not both. For example, when one of our young children needs a particularly painful medical treatment, we can honor our value of honesty and tell him the truth about what he should expect to experience. While this decision honors our value of honesty, it may result in the child resisting the treatment in a way that is detrimental to his recovery. Here, our value of compassion and concern for the child overrides our value of honesty. We will choose to tell the child whatever he needs to hear to maximize the probability that he will not resist the treatment in a detrimental way. Increasing the child’s probability of recovery overrides our value for the truth.

In each of the above cases, reconciling multiple values is relatively easy and straightforward. Almost all people would agree with the approach described. In other cases, balancing the relative importance and applicability of multiple values that point toward different decisions is a very complex problem. Many people find it very difficult to determine a balance in these cases. They decide by focusing on one or only a few values and ignoring all other values even if they are applicable. This approach is lacking in integrity.

Integrity is the status we attain when we balance all values that apply to a particular situation and arrive at a single, best-fit response that accounts for all of the applicable values. We do this not by applying each of the many values applicable to the situation in a series of thoughts. We do this by integrating all of the applicable values into a single value system that accounts for all the values and their interactions. Integrity is not only a higher value. It is a higher dimension that integrates all values.

NOT-FOR-PROFIT STATUS

In my experience, the only operational difference between proprietary corporations and not-for-profit corporations is in the payment or nonpayment of taxes. By law, not-for-profit corporations are exempt from certain taxes that proprietary corporations must pay.

A corporation’s mission and the underlying values that the mission is built on vary widely from organization to organization but this variation has essentially nothing to do with the for-profit or not-for-profit status of the organization.

I consulted with many not-for-profit corporations where getting the most out of the corporation was the primary mission of top management. While they could not take out money by declaring dividends, top management in not-for-profit corporations could drive expensive cars, have large travel and entertainment budgets, have fat pension and deferred compensation plans, and otherwise capitalize on the finances of the corporation. Not-for-profit status is not synonymous with dedication to doing what is right for the intended beneficiaries of the corporation. It certainly does not guarantee that top management will earn less money than top management in proprietary corporations. Reports about not-for-profit corporations with extremely high overhead and minimal funds going to the charitable purposes of the corporation are almost certainly no more than the tip of the iceberg.

I am not saying, of course, that proprietary corporations have higher standards than not-for-profit corporations. Reports about excessive compensation to top managers in for-profit corporations and other abuses that hurt shareholder equity show that this is not the case. I am saying that ethical behavior is not necessarily more common in not-for-profit corporations. I am also saying that proprietary corporations can and should have high ethical standards that put meeting the needs of consumers ahead of everything else, including shareholder earnings and top management compensation.

As I have and will continue to argue, putting the consumer first will benefit shareholders and top management in the long run even if it may hurt them in the short term. My organization delivers very high-quality life experiences to the people we support, charges less than the competition in most cases, but earns much more than the competition. How do we achieve this seemingly impossible accomplishment? We have a strong mission based on strong values that places consumer benefit first and foremost. We clearly and regularly communicate our values and mission. In addition, we easily and rapidly generate consensus about what, when, and how we should do what we do to accomplish our mission and live by our values.