CEO's - The Genie of Accountability

It won't go away, nor should it. Tens of billions of dollars were given in bonuses to employees of financial institutions that went into the tank. The suspicion is that some of those billions were taxpayer dollars. The idea is outrageous. It makes our blood hot. The very people most visibly at fault for the economic meltdown are leaving the disaster scene with bags of cash, ala Scrooge McDuck. Where is the justice?

Our collective rage is focused on the leaders of those organizations, the CEO's, rather than the employees who were given outsize bonuses as well. I feel that these leaders, these CEO's, have failed as stewards of the resources which they managed. We trusted them to use their position and their knowledge to make this a better world. We expected that they would get rich from their position, but we also expected them to care about the good of the business they managed. In this, they have failed badly. We expected them to be greedy. We did not expect them to have no shame.

Shame. What an old fashioned word. Has anyone heard it used in the last twenty years? It is so old fashioned that it is quaint. Before we all got so smart, before we all became educated and modern, the word spoke to our sense of community. It was a word that recognized we all had responsibilities and obligations to the world that we lived in. We are only human, and so will fail on a regular basis. And as we fail, we will exhibit all those traits that make us lovable, i.e. greed, as well as her sisters, lust, gluttony, laziness, anger, envy and pride. But our sense of shame drove us to say we were sorry when we failed. Sometimes it even drove us to be noble rather than self serving.

But then shame can only exist in the company of humility. Humility is another word that has fallen out of use. To be ashamed requires one to be humble, to recognize that you have let your fellows down. But I see no sign of that on the national stage that these titans of industry stride across. They are smarter than we are, they are better connected than we are and they know it. Even as they are on camera before Congress,the righteousness they feel can be seen. They know that as soon as Britney Spears or Tiger Woods make news, we will forget. Then they can return and resume their mastery.

But are CEO's so different? How many athletes on your favorite sports team have left or arrived because of a more lucrative contract? As it happens, I have been a Yankee fan all my life. I trace my love of the Yankees to growing up far out in the sticks and watching baseball on tv. It is exciting to be a fan of a team so committed to winning. But even I am uneasy about the naked power of money used by the Yankees. I watch Alex Rodriguez and the other "best in class" talent fail in October, again and again. I cannot help but compare their smooth superiority to the heart shown by Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill and others when they did win World Series. But seeing an old scratchy news reel of Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech makes my eyes mist up, for it shows how far we have come.

And yet it is our modern age. We are awash in consultants who tell us how to have great organizations. These business masters tell us that we must have metrics and we must have accountability to be successful. We must measure things and then hold people accountable to deliver those things that can be measured. And we follow the advice of these masters. We do measure things and we do hold people accountable. CEO's get to be where they are by consistently delivering those things that are measurable. Alex Rodriguez, A-Rod to us fans, got his $ 400 million dollar contract by consistently making and exceeding the numbers. I expect that A-Rod shows that emotionless sense of superiority because he is delivering. He is doing what he is paid to do. His numbers are fantastic.

I am reminded of the many stories about the genie who grants three wishes. You have heard them I am sure. Some wandering soul finds a lamp and rubs it. A genie appears and grants three wishes to that person. The person asks for those things we all aspire to, wealth, position, love. But each request has an unforeseen flaw that frustrates the meaning of the request. So after three failed dreams, the genie returns to the lamp, satisfied that he has been accountable. He met his metrics and granted the three wishes The wandering soul returns to his wandering, worse off than before.