Humility, empathy v. Humble Pride of Life

"Humility and Empathy.  It's not about what you do, it's how you can motivate and create the environment for others to be their best.  Including you.  A magnification effect, of sorts."

A good friend offered me this advice today.  Humility and empathy are a lost art.  In it's place we have what I would call a humble pride of life.  That is, humility for the purpose of driving one's own ambition.  I thought it appropriate given the private thoughts of some of our so called "market makers" as outlined in the private emails of Goldman Sachs. (GS)  The entire 901 pages of GS package mediated by the house sub-committee is seen below.  Click here if you want it big enough to actually read .


042710Exhibits -

In any case my point is that business today is judged on all the wrong factors.

Check out pages 227-246 for the reviews of some of the managers of the GS fortune.  An example of this humble pride of life?  How about page 243 which includes a self review of one J Birnbaum..."....I command considerable respect from younger members due to my experience and market impact.  I need to spend more time converting this respect into comfort and trust."  Translation? "...my subordinates for good reason think I'm a god.  Maybe I should work on that..."  In this episode we are talking about massive amounts of money.  We can see the Money.  Some say "money is the root of all evil"...isn't that what the good book says?  The thing is, I like money.  If you're honest about it, so do you.  I'll take as much of it as I can legally, morally and ethically get my hands on.  Some of us will take as much as we can get a way with and not get caught.  I hope and pray that is not me.  I like what I can do with money, I like what money can do for others and I like the pleasures, contributions and benefits that money provides to myself and society.  So the scriptures are either wrong or I am a hypocrite.  Right?  I think not.  

Of course the theologians among my, thus far,  non-existent following have already noticed the fallacy.  The Money is not the problem....the good book says the "love of money" is the root of all evil.

So the question becomes, "Is the bottom line" all that matters?  What if Mr. Birnbaum had internal pressure to give equally detailed (see page 241) metrics on how he acted justly, loved mercy and walked humbly?  Would the outcome of this episode been entirely different as it relates to society as a whole?  I'll suggest it may have never even occurred and GS would have made less money.  Perhaps GS would have made less money, but would GS have created less value?  I think not.  In the business community, particularly big business, we have an accountable drive to make money with an unaccountable drive to "give back".  Our large firms are not giving back to increase intangible value - they give back in order to increase monetary value.  The give back because it "is the thing to do".  They give back, but don't measure that contribution in any tanglible way besides monetary value.  In 2007 Goldman Sachs made over $10b.  They "gave back" less than 5% of that to the community.  Where are the metrics for the impact of that contribution?  In what ways do they assure that the impact of their employees work  is adding value to the community at large?  As a self proclaimed "market maker" we don't generally understand what companies like Goldman do.  More importantly, we don't understand how their work impacts us.  If, instead of allocating dollars - or perhaps better said - in addition  to allocating dollars, GS required demonstrable metrics of social value from their employees, then none of this would have happened.  Is that possible?

For now, we end up with self aggrandizement (p.241) and non-critical self review (p243) and metrics measuring the accumulation of untold fortunes.  And lest we use the occasion of Mr. Birnbaum's private comments to foist criticism upon him let me suggest that we all do the same thing.  Maybe we don't measure our profits in the billions - but in God's eyes it doesn't matter.  You and I do the same thing.  Only Mr. Birnbaum can change himself.  Maybe he will, maybe he won't.  I can change me.  You can change you.  And business, it can change itself by figuring out a way to tangibly measure it's value in terms that mitigate a humble pride of life and emphasize humility and empathy.