BUSINESS LEADERSHIP GURU AND AUTHOR CALLS FOR ACTION – SAYING NEWS OF AIG A “BOOKMARK IN TIME”
This week’s news about AIG paying 76 executives bonuses that started at $1,000,000 each, (including several who then immediately left the company), was the last straw. It’s time for “We the People” to say enough.
This recession is more than an economic nightmare for America. It’s an in-our-face wake-up call. And we’d better listen. Our economy was destroyed by compromise — from the White House to the bankers, automakers to Wall Street, and plenty of consumers who overdosed on credit — and we’re all paying the price for it. But with millions out of work, no real let-up in sight and China now holding the mortgage on the most powerful nation on earth, can America rekindle hope, pride, honest living and prosperity?
In a word, yes. America can do whatever it sets out to do, but not until “We the People” stand up and end this seemingly endless era of greed, entitlement, deceit, and living beyond our means, and begin a new chapter built on respect, accountability and fiscal responsibility.
“We the People” are paying for the decades-long compromising behaviors of our elected officials, business leaders, and financial institutions — including con men like Bernard Madoff who single-handedly destroyed the financial lives of thousands, and members of Congress who think they’re exempt from paying taxes. Are they not American citizens, bound by the same laws as the rest of us? From Watergate to Enron to the Bush administration’s misrepresented facts as the rationale to invade Iraq that has cost us 4,258 American lives and a tab of $656 billion that grows by at least $200 million every day, we’ve all been complicit.
Now, we’re learning of the mismanaged bailouts that were handed to the very leaders that contributed to this meltdown. Rather than using it as intended to stimulate lending, banks have been foreclosing on homes while using bailout funds to buy up other banks. The titans of Wall Street, including Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and others, have been laughing all the way to their safely stashed accounts, while knowingly bilking millions of Americans out of their life savings. And the fact that AIG, while crying for more bailout money, was simultaneously paying all those people with money that was flat-out stolen from hard-working American people, is unconscionable. Will any of them be held accountable? Not as long as America remains the “land of greed and entitlement” without consequence. And it MUST NOT be tolerated.
When President Obama first announced his stimulus plan, he promised full transparency AND oversight, so that we’d know where every penny was going and how it was being managed. Until last week, that hadn’t happened. Now, the President has announced a plan to, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “revamp financial market oversight”. Will it be enough? No one knows.
The audacity of greed, power and entitlement at the expense of “We the People” will continue to ravage America until we heed this wake-up call. And the fact is — we have no choice. It’s time to adopt “NO-COMPROMISE” as America’s new mantra to guide our thinking and behavior. “No Compromise” means, if it needs to be done, get it done — make the right, and when necessary, tough — decisions. It means leading and living with the highest level of accountability, honesty and integrity. For America’s light to shine bright once again we must hold not just elected officials and corporate leaders accountable to a higher standard, but all Americans to a higher standard — the No-Compromise standard.
What is Enough? Enough would be stripping Bernie Madoff and whomever he worked with of every penny. Taking the stolen profits of Wall Street robber-barons, the obscene bonuses of everyone at AIG and together, placing all that money into an escrow fund from which the US government could truly help Main Street Americans get back on their feet and back to business. Let the criminals have a taste of the anxiety and fear that the rest of us have been dealing with every day.
So what does a “bookmark in time” mean? Simply, we can’t change the past. We’re in an economic maelstrom created by compromise. Compromise is easy. No compromise is hard work. The bookmark divides the two. If we are to pull ourselves out of this and get back the America we — and the world — once believed in, we need to change. Now.
-- We need President Obama to be a no-compromise leader. His promise of
change gave us hope. No compromise would ensure the reality of that
change --- that he will hold himself and his administration to the
no-compromise standard no matter how tough it may be.
-- We need Congress and our elected officials to do their job. To work
for us --- not their political party. No compromise means doing what's
right, not partisan politics. It means a 100% commitment to
representing their offices with integrity, honesty and duty to their
country, and being held to the same standards as the citizens who put
them in office, for ethical behavior and adherence to the laws they
pledged to protect. It means paying their taxes like everyone else, or
face double the penalties for violating trust.
-- We need business leaders to balance the need for profit with the need
to innovate and be responsible to their employees and customers. The
Big 3 automakers could have been making cool, environmentally-friendly
cars for a decade instead of greedily building SUVs and tomorrow's
profits. And the labor unions and automakers need to realize that they
will all lose their jobs if they don't work together. Fact is, the oil
companies that boasted massive profits should have bailed out the
automakers that produce the vehicles that guzzle their product -- not
our government.
-- We need the courage to blow up our dysfunctional healthcare system and
replace it with one that puts patient care first -- a no-compromise
healthcare system. Profit at the expense of an individual's or
family's health and wellbeing must end.
-- Most important of all, we need to get our financial house in order. As
of this week, the U.S. federal debt surpassed $11 trillion dollars.
Japan and China hold 47% of the foreign-owned debt. No-compromise
fiscal accountability must be embedded in government spending. And
those who steal the livelihoods and life savings of others should be
prosecuted and forced to pay it back. It's not their money. It's ours.
America’s shift to no-compromise thinking and behavior cannot be delayed, and must not be ignored. Just as the world’s scientists warned last week that if we don’t move immediately to stem global warming we may cross the line of no return on this planet, we must heed this recession’s wake-up call or risk losing everything we’ve worked for over the past 200 years. It’s time to place the bookmark in time to end compromise in America and begin a new chapter where no-compromise thinking and behavior can create a safe, secure and accountable culture that ensures the future of our children. Anything less is a compromise.
Neil Ducoff is the author of No-Compromise Leadership (DC Press/January 2009, and CEO of Strategies, a Connecticut-based training and coaching company that teaches leaders and organizations worldwide how to live the no-compromise mantra. During 39 years as a coach, speaker and author, he has gained respect for his turnaround strategies and innovative growth solutions, helping business owners and leaders by sharing how “no-compromise” can make the difference between success and failure, and how to put it to work. His No-Compromise Leadership is the game-changing business manifesto for our times — and nothing less than a paradigm reset.
Source: Neil Ducoff
Web Site: http://www.nocompromiseleadership.com/
