Stephen Covey wrote a seminal book on how to optimize your life and your business, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. If you haven’t read it, it’s a must read to fully understand the concepts of this article. If you have read it, read it again – at least once every quarter – until you have absorbed these ideas into your psyche and are living those seven habits. One of the formative habits is “Begin with The End in Mind.” It is at the core of Strategic Planning. But an even more important principal of life and business is ALWAYS DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR THE END USER.
The basis of this principal is ‘Treat Others as You Would Have Others Treat You.’ Sound familiar? If we live our lives in that way, we don’t become extremists (in any direction); we become proponents of the Fairness Doctrine. Another way of stating the same principal is, “Be Fair to Everyone – Always.”
The 10 Commandments is a pretty good set of codes for living. Even if it wasn’t sourced in the Judaic/Christian religion, it would still be a good set of codes for everyone on earth, regardless of what form of higher source they believed (or whether they believed in one at all). But no one should have a problem with the second five of the Commandments that suggest how we can live a Principal-Based Life;
- Honor Your Parents – if they deserve to be honored. They, hopefully, raised you as best as they could. But it is extreme to presume that all parents deserve to be honored. Treat them as you would have your children treat you someday – and treat your children in a way that will cause them to “honor” you someday, firm, but fair = The Fairness Doctrine.
- Don’t Murder — It is extreme to either permit indiscriminate killing (cold-blooded murder, genocide, simple retribution, etc) but it is just as extreme to refuse to end someone who would continue to hurt others if left unpunished. The “eye for an eye” doctrine is not meant to be literal. It is meant to subscribe to the Fairness Doctrine.
- Never cheat – yourself or anyone else. You don’t want anyone to cheat you. This covers a number of the 10 Commandments (adultery, lying, stealing). This, again, describes the Fairness Doctrine.
- Don’t Covet – It’s not bad to want “things”. It motivates us to be successful. But don’t drive yourself to ‘keep up with the neighbors’ or to be like anyone else just because of what they have. That’s extreme! We have built our country and our culture on a healthy dose of “wanting” a better life for ourselves and our families. “Wanting” with our primary concern being the “end user” (the well-being of ourselves and our families), is good. “Wanting” with our primary reason being coveting someone else’s possessions is extreme. Again, the Fairness Doctrine rules.
Applying the Fairness Doctrine to our business lives will fulfill both our own best interest and, simultaneously, the best interest of our clients and our employees (the most important ‘end users’ in our businesses).
When we do our Strategic Planning, we “plan” for business success, growth and profit. Why? We should want success in order to give ourselves and our families a good and secure future. There is nothing wrong with that. But if we are concentrated on doing what’s best for the end user, you won’t grow and/or profit by taking away from our employees best interests or those of our customers.
The concept of “being fair to everyone – always” is simple. But simplicity doesn’t imply that it is easy to accomplish. We see frequent examples of rationalization for actions that are obviously ‘unfair’ in order to accomplish end results that may be commendable. The false principal of ‘The End Justifies the Means’ has sounded good and rationale to extremists all over the world to justify what they consider ‘right and just’ causes. Similarly, raising taxes is an example of negatively impacting one group of people (taxpayers) in order to accomplish (hopefully) noble goals, serving all people. The interesting reality that is facing most Americans today is that we may not be able to afford to provide the wonderful things we would like for everyone when most taxpayers are backed against the ‘wall’ economically. Localities and States are all feeling the impact of taxpayers acting in their own self-interest, rejecting new initiatives and taxes, both questionable and commendable, simply because it would hurt their ‘end users’, their families, to an extreme.
Now let’s translate these concepts to our own lives, both personal and business. Good things happen when people do the right things consistently over time. But bad things sometimes still happen to good people in the short term. If we stop doing the right things consistently because we face a personal or business downturn, our only option is doing things that we know will harm someone in order to gain an advantage in our own goals. For instance, if we face a downturn in profit it is perfectly reasonable to take less income in a year as an owner. The ramifications of business ownership is that we enjoy the rewards of our business when we are successful and bear the burden of taking less profit (or none) if business is not successful. The Fairness Doctrine certainly justifies lowering raises for our employees coincidental with our own reductions in compensation. This is not easy to explain to employees, but it is JUST. We cross the line when we lower or eliminate raises to employees IN ORDER TO maintain our business profits at artificially high levels.
Many agencies experience losses in a soft market. There is no question about profits above your expenses. You actually lose money and must suffer deficits or take less income personally – and that affects you and your families’ well-being. Many agency owners, in the spirit of paternal feelings for their employees, try to continue to give raises to employees when they, themselves, are taking less income in a given year. This is an EXTREME in the other direction. It is absurd to pay someone a 5% or 10% raise when the owners (who are often the hardest working employees of their businesses) are taking a pay cut. They do so in the misdirected feelings that they are responsible for their employees’ well-being. They are, but only insofar as their own wellbeing is not negatively affected.
Of course, the preceding paragraphs imply that the agency owners are paying themselves a ‘fair’ compensation for the work that they are doing in the agency (“fair” = the same amount that they would pay someone else to perform the same functions at similar levels of performance). This means that they benefit annually from business success or suffer from business decline through the profits of the agency and they benefit in the long term by the increased value of the business that will eventually be transferred to the next generation (or to someone else) when the business is perpetuated.
The Fairness Doctrine for agency clients and prospects pertain to how you treat your customers. Do you concentrate of what products are best for your clients, or do you concentrate on the commission rates offered or the pressures from the carriers to bolster volumes? Do you find that most of your accounts are ‘Renewed, As Is’ without analysis or do you analyze their accounts each year to determine which products are best for them for the next term? Which of these preceding statements properly defines the Fairness Doctrine? Are you being ‘fair to everyone – always’? Are you treating your client the same way YOU would want to be treated in similar circumstances?
If you ask yourself these questions every time you make a decision with respect to your employees or your customers you will find that the ‘right’ choice is relatively clear — CLEAR, not necessarily easy. Just remember, PEOPLE are always more important than entities. ‘Fairness’ applies to yourself and your family as much as it does to your employees and your clients. If you don’t cheat, yourself or anyone else, you will feel better about yourself in the long run. Your business success should be defined by how hard you work and how smart you are about growing and creating more profits, not by whether you are cheating yourself or anyone else to get the results you desire.