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racist slurs surprised and disturbed him, but he never lessened his performance or his pursuit.

“It never slowed me down,” Aaron told one interviewer. “It only made me stronger.” Standing up for yourself and your beliefs takes strength and courage. But doing otherwise will take a serious toll on your self-esteem and reputation.

A laid-off investment banker in Chicago discovered that his former colleagues were disparaging him to prospective employers by speculating about nonexistent “performance problems.” Rather than play victim, he took steps to safeguard his reputation and future. The banker called the firm’s office manager and explained the legal and ethical dilemmas that his former co-workers’ “loose tongues” and “false pride” were creating.

Although he never directly threatened a lawsuit, his tone and comments implied the possibility. His strategy of straightforward communication effectively put an end to the gossip that was damaging his career prospects. The office manager quickly sent off a memo making it clear that the big-mouthed offenders would be held accountable for their off-the-record communications.

Yes, there can be consequences when you act so aggressively. But standing by passively has its own consequences. What’s the point of keeping your job but later being sent to jail? Or keeping your job and losing your license to practice your profession? Or keeping your job and losing your soul? Or even losing your job because you kept your mouth shut but the company got caught anyway?

Reshape the World

Writer Niko Kazantzakis believed happiness comes to people who wear the Reformer’s mantle: those who work to remake the world in accord with their own beliefs and principles.

This appears to be the goal of New York attorney general Elliot Spitzer, whose office launched a full-fledged frontal assault on Wall

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Street executives and the securities industry. Looking something like a white-collar Rambo, he barraged Merrill Lynch with subpoenas and carted off loads of incriminating documents. After making hundreds of internal ML memos public, there was no doubt that the company had engaged in one of the biggest pump-and-dump stock scams in history.

The company settled with Spitzer for $100 million. But if they thought they were done with him, they were wrong. Several months later, he captured Wall Street’s attention again by revealing that Merrill Lynch analysts had been recommending stocks publicly while trashing those same companies privately in internal e-mails. The Spitzer probe turned up a series of explosive internal e-mails from Merrill analysts reflecting their disdain for the very companies they were recommending in public research reports.

Because the Merrill Lynch incidents turned out to represent standard industry practices, they were not the only losers in this game. Once they caved in, a number of other Wall Street firms admitted to the same unethical practices. A whole host of firms then coughed up $100 million (or, in some cases, $50 million apiece) for a grand total of $1 billion.

As a result of his effort, determination, and courage, Elliot Spitzer has spearheaded the most sweeping changes in the securities industry in over 50 years. And I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of him.

Trust Your Inner Strength

Our world cries out for courageous, compassionate, wise, and skillful leaders to provide vision and direction. Yet part of that moral complaint rings hollow. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, what many people really want is a parent to rescue them from the traumas of growing up.

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L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz is the allegory for our times, so relevant to this discussion that the tale bears repeating (if you’ve only seen the movie, you know only a small fraction of the story):

A cyclone rips through the Kansas prairie, where Dorothy lives in childhood bliss with her Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, and faithful dog Toto. The tornado tears the house from its foundation and carries it to a strange land Dorothy has never seen before. The countryside is beautiful and filled with strange sights, but Dorothy wants the safety of her aunt’s arms. Without realizing that the ruby slippers she’s wearing have the power to carry her home, she sets off down the Yellow Brick Road to ask the all-powerful Wizard of Oz to help her.

Along the way, she meets up with the Scarecrow, who wants to travel with her to Oz to ask for brains. Poor Scarecrow believes that there’s nothing worse than being a fool, and thinks he’s stupid even though he’s really just young and inexperienced. Already he knows two things for certain: to be afraid of lighted matches, and how little he knows. Some people might call that wisdom.

The Scarecrow asks Dorothy to describe Kansas. When she explains how gray it was, he can’t understand why she wants to return to such a dreary place.

“That is because you have no brains!” Dorothy tells him. “No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.”

“Of course, I cannot understand it,” says the Scarecrow. “If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains.”

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After a while, their journey is interrupted by groans from a man made of tin, whose joints have become rusted from disuse. When they oil his joints, he sighs with satisfaction and thanks them for saving his life. Hearing of their mission, he asks to join them on their journey because he would like a heart.

The Tin Woodsman’s story is a painful one. For much of his life, he was a woodsman who cared for his elderly mother. After his mother died, he fell in love with a Munchkin girl and wanted to marry her. But the girl’s caretaker was an old woman who wanted the girl to cook and do housework for her forever. So the old woman got the Wicked Witch of the East to enchant the woodsman’s ax, which made him cut off his own legs, arms, and head. The tinsmith replaced each part of the woodsman’s body with a new tin part, but in the process, the woodsman lost his heart (and thus his love for the Munchkin girl). He stopped caring whether he married her or not.

The Tin Woodsman was proud of his new body, which no one could cut or hurt ever again. But rust was his enemy. He spent a year rusted in place, which gave him plenty of time to think. He decided that the greatest loss he suffered was his heart, because you can’t be happy if you can’t love, and you can’t love without a heart.

While the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodsman debate whether it’s better to have brains or a heart, Dorothy worries about what she’ll eat, since she can’t live without food. Hearing her concern, the Scarecrow uses the wits he doesn’t have to gather nuts for her dinner from nearby trees.

Their next problem arises when they’re “attacked” by a Lion who tries to scare them with his roar. When Dorothy calls his bluff and tells him he’s a coward, he breaks down

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weeping. To his great sorrow, the king of the jungle lacks the courage to fulfill his destiny.

“My life is simply unbearable without a bit of courage,” he says. So when the Lion hears of their journey, he decides to tag along and ask the Wizard of Oz for help.

As they travel companionably together, they encounter many problems and challenges. They conquer each obstacle by using the brains, heart, and courage they think they lack.

The Wizard, of course, turns out to be a fraud. But he is also a good man who manages to give Scarecrow a brain made from pins and needles, the Tin Woodsman a red cloth heart, and the Lion a magic potion for courage. But he doesn’t have an effective strategy to get Dorothy home to Kansas. For that, they need the good witch Glinda, who knows how to use her powers wisely. First, she arranges to install Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, and Lion in leadership roles throughout the kingdom where each can use their newly found talents to rule. Then she shows Dorothy how to use the power of her ruby slippers to return home.

Once you realize that Dorothy’s journey is a dream, the story is easier to interpret. From a psychoanalytic point of view, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, and Lion are parts of Dorothy’s self that she’s struggling to integrate. But she’s terrified of separating from the safe world where her loving aunt and uncle care for all her needs. By the end of the adventure, though, Dorothy has grown in stature and become a more confident, self-assertive person.

Dorothy’s lesson is a universal one: that we all need to separate from the powerful figures of our childhood to cultivate the wisdom, compassion, courage, and skill we need for our life’s journey.

Dorothy needed the good witch Glinda to show her how to use the power she already had. This is what teachers, leaders, and mentors are

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really for. And despite what respondents to the Patterson and Kim survey may think, there are always real role models or heroes whose examples you can learn from and follow. You just have to cultivate the eyes with which to see.

The cry of our times is for more responsible participation. As Herbert Hoover believed: “We need to add to the three R’s, namely Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic, a fourth—Responsibility.” If you accept the responsibility to fulfill your destiny, you must cultivate all the skills of responsible participation: courage, compassion, wisdom, and initiative. Ignore your longing for a White Knight. You are your own White Knight now. Cultivate the leader within yourself and make that person someone who isn’t afraid to care.

There are plenty of reasons to live an ethical life. But the very best reason to do it is for yourself. Integrity stands at the heart of self-esteem, and self-esteem is a crucial pillar of a happy life. If you can’t respect yourself, you won’t respect other people, either. And you won’t like the life you’re living, because you won’t like the person who’s living it.

When you get lost in the daily shuffle, tell yourself the Oz story. And remember the moral of the story: The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, the Lion, and Dorothy all had the tools within themselves to achieve their deepest, most heartfelt desires.

Next time you head out the door for work, see how it feels to carry some compassion in your heart, some fire in your belly for the fight, and all the wisdom of your experience with you.

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Business Ethics: What’s Your Bottom Line?

Thought-Starter Worksheet

1.How ethical is the organization you work for? (Circle one.)

Very

Somewhat

So-so

The pits

2.Where are they most likely to cut corners?

3.Do you generally agree with their values and priorities?

4.Have you ever been asked to do something that you felt was unethical? How did you respond?

5.Were you satisfied with the way you handled the situation?

6.Is there anything you should have done differently?

7.Have you ever ignored unethical behavior? Was it because you didn’t want to get involved? Hate confrontation? Feared reprisal?

(continues)

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(continued)

8.Do you believe that a certain amount of lying and cheating is normal and acceptable business practice?

9.If you insisted on more honest and ethical business practices, would it jeopardize your career mobility?

10.Would more ethical business practices interfere with your organization’s ability to compete?

11.Do you believe that the financial bottom line is the most important consideration in any business?

12.Would you personally break the law to protect the bottom line?

13.Would you treat people unfairly to improve the bottom line?

14.Would you skimp on customer service to help your company’s financial status?

15.Would you describe yourself as an ethical person?

16.Do your responses to questions 9 through 14 support your beliefs?

17.When you have an ethical conflict, whom are you most likely to consult?

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18.How would you describe that person’s character?

19.If you believe your organization suffers from bad business ethics, is there anything you can do to improve those practices?

20.Have you ever participated in an ethics training program?

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CHAPTER 10

Work/Life Balance: Making a

Life While Making a Living

There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.

—Christopher Morley

Woody Allen likes to tell a story about the time he got kicked out of school for cheating on an exam. It was a

metaphysics class and he tried to look into his classmate’s soul.

You can’t copy someone else’s soul and call it the “right answer.” But when it comes to finding a path to the Good Life, many people try. They follow a prefabricated career track others have created for them and hope it will lead to fulfillment. It rarely does. Everyone must find his or her own personal vision of happiness. The road to career satisfaction isn’t always easy, though. Often, the initial task of thinking for yourself to determine your true goals can involve a painful separation process.

Some of the most difficult decisions involve the need to balance work and family. I can only imagine how difficult that balance must have been for George W. Bush’s trusted advisor Karen Hughes who, prior to her departure from the White House, had been called “the most influential person” in Bush’s political life. Despite her close ties to the President, she and her husband wanted her son to grow up in Texas, and she wanted to be there with him to watch him grow up and do all the things that an involved mom does for her kids.

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Much as she loves politics and political life, Hughes believes that her most important responsibility in life is to be a good parent; so she chose to put her family ahead of her service to government. However, it was clear to everyone involved that, even from Texas, she would still be actively involved with President Bush and his administration.

Whereas many people struggle to balance work and family, others feel pressured to figure out what kind of work they really want to do for the rest of their lives. Glenn Hilburn is 34 years old. He has an undergraduate degree in business and nursing and a history of great success in two careers (Registered Nurse and IT manager). But he also discovered that “success didn’t equate to happiness.”

At first he enjoyed his work and was proud of his success. But then his definition of success began to change. With that change in vantage point came the realization that he was no longer happy with his work. Although he had been contemplating a change for nearly a year, he just couldn’t find the right time. The longer he waited, the more depressed and lost he felt.

Says Hilburn: “I awoke on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11 and instantly wondered how many of the thousands of people that perished in the twin towers had been contemplating a change in career. Certainly, as a result of that tragic day, they would never have the chance to make that change. That morning was a life-changing time as I decided that I wouldn’t continue the contemplation and risk losing my chance; so I went to work that morning and tendered my resignation, much to the shock and dismay of my superiors and colleagues.”

His colleagues and superiors tried to dissuade him from this rash decision, but Hilburn was firm in his resolve. During the next three weeks, he was “floored” by how many people approached him to tell him how much they respected his decision and really wished they had the courage to take that same step. Fortunately, Hilburn had the financial resources and emotional strength to leave his job, even though he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do next. In a perfect

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