In my book The Power of Character, Dr. Laura Schlessinger writes that her radio show didn’t become a success until she abandoned the nonjudgmental strategy of the traditional psychologist/family counselor and began to challenge, chastise, and encourage her listeners to think of their behavior in terms of right and wrong. Believing that we’re all obligated to discern and honor moral …
Disposition or Discipline? 720.1
Have you heard the story of a shoe company that sent two salesmen into the backwoods? After a few days, both came back. One was frustrated: “It was a waste of time. None of these people wear shoes.” The second was enthused: “Tremendous opportunity here. None of these people wear shoes.” It’s pretty obvious which salesman was more successful, and …
Do Nice Guys Really Finish Last? 719.1
“Nice guys finish last.” This maxim originated with a fiercely competitive baseball manager named Leo Durocher who shamelessly advocated ruthlessness, cheating, and dirty play. It is also used to explain why sweet, thoughtful men lose out to self-centered jerks in the world of dating. Lots of people believe the philosophy applies in business as well. The rationale: Nice is the …
Firms of Endearment 718.4
A challenge I frequently face while consulting with senior executives and boards of directors of public companies is a belief that their primary mandate is to make profits and enhance shareholder value. Thus, ethical principles like honesty, fairness, and caring are proper guides to decision making only to the extent that they can demonstrably improve profitability or be incorporated into …
Statement of Family Values 717.4
Our values – the core beliefs that drive behavior – determine our character, our ethics, and our potential. Thus, the most important thing we can do for our children is to stimulate them to develop positive values that will help them become wise, happy, and good. This is no simple matter. The first step is to achieve greater clarity about …
The Experimental Operation 717.2
Tess, an earnest 8-year-old, was worried. Her little brother was very sick and she overheard her mom crying on the phone: “They say his only chance is an experimental operation, but it isn’t covered by insurance and there’s no way we can pay for it.” Tess went to a jar containing all the money she had saved. Although she wasn’t …
If You’re in a Hole, Stop Digging 716.2
Most of us have lied to get out of trouble. From childhood denials (“it wasn’t me”) to adult fabrications (“the check is in the mail”), what seem like harmless falsehoods easily fall from our tongues. And then we make up more excuses or tell more lies to protect the first one. Soon the “cover-up” is more serious and credibility-damaging than …
Failing Forward: Turning Stumbling Blocks into Stepping Stones 715.1
The best way to teach our children to succeed is to teach them to fail. After all, if getting everything you want on the first try is success, and everything else is failure, we all fail much more often than we succeed. People who learn how to grow from unsuccessful efforts succeed more often and at higher levels because they …
Maybe Pro Athletes Really Aren’t Jerks 714.5
I never heard of Kim Hughes until I was sent a link to a story written in newspaper from Racine, Wisconsin. What I learned was that Hughes, a 6-foot-11 giant of a man, was half of a set of identical twins who played basketball for the University of Wisconsin. He was also an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Clippers …
Lottery Winners and Paraplegics 713.3
The field of Positive Psychology pioneered by professor Martin Seligman is just over ten years old. Prior to his declaration that psychologists should study what works in life, including the factors that produce happiness and success, almost all research focused on mental illness and dysfunctional personalities. Positive Psychology unleashed waves of useful scientific wisdom, including the conclusion that happier people …
The Paradoxical Commandments
In 1968, when Kent M. Keith was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he wrote “The Paradoxical Commandments” as part of a booklet for student leaders. He describes the Commandments as guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity: 1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. 2. If you do good, people will accuse you of …
The Illusion of Success 711.5
A common management strategy to spur achievement is to set aggressive performance objectives that, like the mechanical rabbits that pace racing greyhounds, push employees to maximum effort. Using “stretch goals” can be successful, but unreasonably high performance goals often spawn dishonesty and irresponsibility. Believing that “it’s a matter of survival,” a disturbing number of employees conclude that distortion, deception, and …
Cheating Is Just Wrong 711.3
If you have a child in high school, there’s a pretty good chance he or she cheats at school. In fact, a recent study by the Josephson Institute reveals that 59% of high schoolers admit they cheated in the past year. Yet neither schools nor parents seem to take this seriously. Instead they often tell kids: “You’re only cheating yourself.” …