On the third hand, it was widely expressed during the electin process that electing Obama was going to lead to tax increases on those who hold signifincant assets (he made the statement himself), so a vote for Obama WAS a vote for higher taxes. Since Obama initimated that he advocates repsonsiblity for one’s actions, this employer is just carrying out the wishes of the Presidetn elect and the electorate.
I hope everyone knows that CFO firing post isn’t real. It started as an e-mail circulating through the web.
Obama hasn’t taken office, yet. Pretty obvious, what is going on right now has little to do with Obama. The financial crisis, morgatage meltdown, wars, oil going up and down.
The email linked above is basic business 101. In the world of big business, labor is considered a controllable "expense." If costs to the business go up and sales goes down, thinks you can’t control, you must cut costs in places you can control. Labor is the first thing that gets cut.
I’m not saying it is right, I’m not saying it is my opinion, I’m just stating how the business leaders think. And in closing, we all know, firing someone for their political views or how they voted, is against the law.
I would like to see American business change to the "value" based business model. Where the leadership sees beyond simply making money as the purpose of the business. I don’t have enough space here to explain it, but think of a business as being a big family (not the typical disfunctional family [grin]) that works together for a common cause.
Where the leadership sees beyond simply making money as the purpose of the business. I don’t have enough space here to explain it, but think of a business as being a big family (not the typical disfunctional family [grin]) that works together for a common cause.
And how does one figure out what is most desired by society in greater quantities? By what people are willing to pay.
And how do you figure out what would be the best application of your "family’s" efforts? The thing by what they can gain the greatest profit.
There’s a lot of valuable information conveyed in prices and a lot of societal value inherent to the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Don’t cast it aside so lightly.
And while I’m playing libertarian provacetuer, while employers are clearly not "lords of all they survey", they are the customers for labor.
And you know what they say about customers…
From your comment I assume you have no idea what a value based business is. I said nothing about what is desired by society. And a valued based business sees beyond the single measurement of profit as how successful they are.
And if you look at what is going on in America today, I find it difficult to say the pursuit of the almighty dollar alone has been a noble cause.
If ‘value’ has no commercial value, that is, if it cannot be equated to some number of dollars, it has no value. It’s a sentiment.
Like a Kincaid greeting card. You can sell those cards for a bit of money, but you can’t run a business on them, unless you are, in fact, Thomas Kincaid.
The rest of it is just a game you play with yourself (you know another word for playing with yourself, right?) to make you feel good about yourself.
If you paid to attend a conference that sold you on the value of ‘Value’, you got ripped off. Unless your government paid for it, in which case I got ripped off.
I like the business as family model, but it doesn’t work well for very long unless it is a family owned business. If your business is supported by common stocks, then the stockholder is the owner, and totally disconnected from the business except through the financial market. If you rub elbows with the worker-bees, it’s a lot easier to be concerned with thier health, well-being, and psyches.
There are lots of socially conscious financial vehicles like mutual funds out there, and they don’t generally do as well for a stockholder as less friendly and more money oriented ones.
<i>From your comment I assume you have no idea what a value based business is. I said nothing about what is desired by society. And a valued based business sees beyond the single measurement of profit as how successful they are. </i>
I’ll try the shorter version then.
All else being equal, maximizing profit maximizes social welfare. You say a value-based business does not maximize profit. Therefore, a value-based business is suboptimal socially and less desirable than a profit-maximizing business model.
There are many businesses that are employee owned. I think one of the problems in big business today is the common stock, stockholder as owner, business disconnect.
Jodyneel,
I disagree with the concept of, "maximizing profit maximizes social welfare." Therefore, I disagree with your conclusion that, "a value-based business is suboptimal socially and less desirable than a profit-maximizing business model."
Man, I love these sorts of arguments that a "business" needs to be more like a "family."
Robert E. Lee’s touchy-feely "value-based business" sounds, frankly, like a child’s pop-up book.
The bottom line, in this case, is literally the bottom line.
If you can’t make a profit, you can’t run a business. If you make ENOUGH profit, you can fool around with touchy feely stuff. But if you DON’T make enough profit, you are just out of business.
If you run out of profit trying to DO the "touchy-feely" stuff then you’ve done yourself and your employees a disservice since the FUNDAMENTAL value a business offers is PROFIT, which includes the ability to hire employees.
If you want to organize company picnics and company dances to make people feel better about working there, by all means do so, but it better not interfere with productivity. Not unless one of your “values” is downsizing the company.
Well, it seems to be working for Google, Starbucks, Whole Foods Market, Publix Supermarkets, FedEx, Yahoo!, and many many more.
I guess you guys prefer the old school business model of GM, Ford, Circuit City, AIG, and oh yea, Fannie and Freddie. Yea that has been working REALLY well.
What policies or practices are businesses like Starbucks, Publix Supermarkets, or FedEx pursuing that make them value based businesses rather than profit based businesses?
Can you give us a few examples of what companies might do to become value based?
Who decides which values are appropriate for a value based company to pursue?
If a company decides that the thing they value most highly is creating the maximum profits for their shareholders, are they still a value based business, or do they morph into an evil, or perhaps just shortsighted, profit based business?
Some people can run a business with a touchy-feely atmosphere and some cannot. Truthfully, many of the "touchy-feely" elements of management are free to implement. Good benefits and pay on the other hand is not touchy-feely but what you offer to get the best people on your staff. What employers are telling America is we no longer need good workers because they are too expensive. Thus, we’ll hire a Chinese sweatshop to paint lead all over our childdren’s toys. You see, the lives of children, the quality of their product, and the welfare of the worker no longer matter. There is a way to offer goods cheaply most of the time while still offering basic wages and benefits to employees. For many companies, it is a matter of reduction in profits, not a gross or net loss.
The problem with the pursuit of the almighty dollar is you end up alienating your country men and selling out your product to the lowest bidder. Americans are the largest consumer of goods in the world. If we can no longer make money, we cannot buy. If we cannot buy, your company cannot make as much money as they could if we could buy. At this trend the current clusterf%^k we call our economy will auto-cannibalize and smarter people will take it over. This is what American businesses are shooting for.
Can you give us a few examples of what companies might do to become value based?
Treating people like human beings instead of a productivity statistic for starters.
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17 comments
One the one hand it is their shop/property so they can hire and fire who they want…
doesn’t make it seem good or fair but I can’t argue its illegal or necessarily immoral. But kinda rude.
gt’s last blog post..Tuesday Piggy Post!
I dunno. That is firing someone for their political associations, and I think that’s illegal even in the US. It is certainly illegal in Canada.
I recognize, of course, that proving it wouldn’t necessarily be easy.
On the third hand, it was widely expressed during the electin process that electing Obama was going to lead to tax increases on those who hold signifincant assets (he made the statement himself), so a vote for Obama WAS a vote for higher taxes. Since Obama initimated that he advocates repsonsiblity for one’s actions, this employer is just carrying out the wishes of the Presidetn elect and the electorate.
I hope everyone knows that CFO firing post isn’t real. It started as an e-mail circulating through the web.
Obama hasn’t taken office, yet. Pretty obvious, what is going on right now has little to do with Obama. The financial crisis, morgatage meltdown, wars, oil going up and down.
The email linked above is basic business 101. In the world of big business, labor is considered a controllable "expense." If costs to the business go up and sales goes down, thinks you can’t control, you must cut costs in places you can control. Labor is the first thing that gets cut.
I’m not saying it is right, I’m not saying it is my opinion, I’m just stating how the business leaders think. And in closing, we all know, firing someone for their political views or how they voted, is against the law.
What I would like to see:
I would like to see American business change to the "value" based business model. Where the leadership sees beyond simply making money as the purpose of the business. I don’t have enough space here to explain it, but think of a business as being a big family (not the typical disfunctional family [grin]) that works together for a common cause.
I don’t know about the morality or the legality of such a decision, but I certainly wouldn’t make it public.
TexasAg03’s last blog post..Satan is in a Coat
Where the leadership sees beyond simply making money as the purpose of the business. I don’t have enough space here to explain it, but think of a business as being a big family (not the typical disfunctional family [grin]) that works together for a common cause.
And how does one figure out what is most desired by society in greater quantities? By what people are willing to pay.
And how do you figure out what would be the best application of your "family’s" efforts? The thing by what they can gain the greatest profit.
There’s a lot of valuable information conveyed in prices and a lot of societal value inherent to the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Don’t cast it aside so lightly.
jodyneel’s last blog post..Tech still controls its own destiny?!?
And while I’m playing libertarian provacetuer, while employers are clearly not "lords of all they survey", they are the customers for labor.
And you know what they say about customers…
jodyneel’s last blog post..Tech still controls its own destiny?!?
jodyneel,
From your comment I assume you have no idea what a value based business is. I said nothing about what is desired by society. And a valued based business sees beyond the single measurement of profit as how successful they are.
And if you look at what is going on in America today, I find it difficult to say the pursuit of the almighty dollar alone has been a noble cause.
If ‘value’ has no commercial value, that is, if it cannot be equated to some number of dollars, it has no value. It’s a sentiment.
Like a Kincaid greeting card. You can sell those cards for a bit of money, but you can’t run a business on them, unless you are, in fact, Thomas Kincaid.
The rest of it is just a game you play with yourself (you know another word for playing with yourself, right?) to make you feel good about yourself.
If you paid to attend a conference that sold you on the value of ‘Value’, you got ripped off. Unless your government paid for it, in which case I got ripped off.
John_B’s last blog post..Crown Pr. Sultan in US for Medical Tests
I like the business as family model, but it doesn’t work well for very long unless it is a family owned business. If your business is supported by common stocks, then the stockholder is the owner, and totally disconnected from the business except through the financial market. If you rub elbows with the worker-bees, it’s a lot easier to be concerned with thier health, well-being, and psyches.
There are lots of socially conscious financial vehicles like mutual funds out there, and they don’t generally do as well for a stockholder as less friendly and more money oriented ones.
<i>From your comment I assume you have no idea what a value based business is. I said nothing about what is desired by society. And a valued based business sees beyond the single measurement of profit as how successful they are. </i>
I’ll try the shorter version then.
All else being equal, maximizing profit maximizes social welfare. You say a value-based business does not maximize profit. Therefore, a value-based business is suboptimal socially and less desirable than a profit-maximizing business model.
jodyneel’s last blog post..Tech still controls its own destiny?!?
P Mike,
There are many businesses that are employee owned. I think one of the problems in big business today is the common stock, stockholder as owner, business disconnect.
Jodyneel,
I disagree with the concept of, "maximizing profit maximizes social welfare." Therefore, I disagree with your conclusion that, "a value-based business is suboptimal socially and less desirable than a profit-maximizing business model."
Man, I love these sorts of arguments that a "business" needs to be more like a "family."
Robert E. Lee’s touchy-feely "value-based business" sounds, frankly, like a child’s pop-up book.
The bottom line, in this case, is literally the bottom line.
If you can’t make a profit, you can’t run a business. If you make ENOUGH profit, you can fool around with touchy feely stuff. But if you DON’T make enough profit, you are just out of business.
If you run out of profit trying to DO the "touchy-feely" stuff then you’ve done yourself and your employees a disservice since the FUNDAMENTAL value a business offers is PROFIT, which includes the ability to hire employees.
If you want to organize company picnics and company dances to make people feel better about working there, by all means do so, but it better not interfere with productivity. Not unless one of your “values” is downsizing the company.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..9 millimeters of blue-steel goodness
Hmmmm,
Well, it seems to be working for Google, Starbucks, Whole Foods Market, Publix Supermarkets, FedEx, Yahoo!, and many many more.
I guess you guys prefer the old school business model of GM, Ford, Circuit City, AIG, and oh yea, Fannie and Freddie. Yea that has been working REALLY well.
Geesh.
What policies or practices are businesses like Starbucks, Publix Supermarkets, or FedEx pursuing that make them value based businesses rather than profit based businesses?
Can you give us a few examples of what companies might do to become value based?
Who decides which values are appropriate for a value based company to pursue?
If a company decides that the thing they value most highly is creating the maximum profits for their shareholders, are they still a value based business, or do they morph into an evil, or perhaps just shortsighted, profit based business?
Some people can run a business with a touchy-feely atmosphere and some cannot. Truthfully, many of the "touchy-feely" elements of management are free to implement. Good benefits and pay on the other hand is not touchy-feely but what you offer to get the best people on your staff. What employers are telling America is we no longer need good workers because they are too expensive. Thus, we’ll hire a Chinese sweatshop to paint lead all over our childdren’s toys. You see, the lives of children, the quality of their product, and the welfare of the worker no longer matter. There is a way to offer goods cheaply most of the time while still offering basic wages and benefits to employees. For many companies, it is a matter of reduction in profits, not a gross or net loss.
The problem with the pursuit of the almighty dollar is you end up alienating your country men and selling out your product to the lowest bidder. Americans are the largest consumer of goods in the world. If we can no longer make money, we cannot buy. If we cannot buy, your company cannot make as much money as they could if we could buy. At this trend the current clusterf%^k we call our economy will auto-cannibalize and smarter people will take it over. This is what American businesses are shooting for.
Can you give us a few examples of what companies might do to become value based?
Treating people like human beings instead of a productivity statistic for starters.
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