What exactly is greed anyway?
Who gets to decide what amount of profit is greed?
Yesterday’s blog elicited some interesting commentary. The ones that captured my attention the most were the above questions. I decided to take a stab at continuing the dialogue on greed.
First, greed is subject to interpretation. Usually the person behaving in a greedy way never sees it that way or, has decided that they have earned some type of privilege that allows this behavior. Those that recognize or experience greed are usually the people effected by its behavior. For example, the banks that benefited from the various bailouts keep a tight reign on new loans, and declares record profits and bonuses appear greedy to the outside business world. Banks and those in high finance defend these behaviors as not totally accurate. To the rest, it sure looked like greedy behavior. Perception is reality.
Second, greed is an action that hurts or adversely affects other people. Profit taking or protecting behaviors that mollifies one party at the calamatous detriment to another party is greedy. Partners that stick it to their partners, employees who embezzle from the company, executives who have two sets of business and expenditure rules are all greedy behaviors. Either everyone benefits, plays by the same rules, or is minimally impacted or it is greedy. Perception is reality.
Finally, greed is narcissistic. As greed is subject to interpretation, greed can also be justified. Layoffs can be and often are a downside result of a declining business. However, massive layoffs to simply and swiftly manage to the balance sheet is greedy. There are always creative ways to manage, contain, and control costs; however, in the recent wave of layoffs the behaviors reflected one philosophy, react to a problem with a quick solution to protect the financial health of the firm without looking at the long-term impact to the business or the short-term affect on its people. These layoffs were simply the most expeditious action. The people benefiting from this behavior was the ownership class at the expense of the retained employees and at the pain of those who were tossed aside. Remember, perception is reality.
I don’t know if I have the answer as to what amount of profit taking is not greedy. However, I do know that when profit taking is short-sighted, selfish, inconsistent, causes pain to others, and is not holistic in its process, it is greed. When the participating community (workers, owners, suppliers, customers) do not benefit from their relationship with the organization and there is adverse cost associated with that relationship based on profit taking decisions, the related behavior is greedy. In the end, perception is reality.
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