I doubt there are any Wall Street bankers who don’t consider themselves leaders and they exist in a world where innovation never stops.

Now, those wily, innovative leaders have come up with a new product to avoid new regulations.

Investment bankers in the US have begun using equity derivatives to convert restricted shares paid as bonuses into cash, side-stepping new guidelines on remuneration which were designed to prevent bankers cashing out for at least three years, according to a headhunter.

Popular wisdom wants us to believe that leaders ‘do the right thing’, but when it comes to those on Wall Street it’s strictly the right thing for themselves.

Image credit: HikingArtist on flickr

Do you wonder what’s happened to people over the last century and into this one?

Did something change or was it always this way?

When did fudging, dissembling, dissimulating, equivocating, falsifying, fibbing, inventing, misleading, misrepresenting, misstating, and prevaricating become business as usual?

Call it what you will, it is still lying.

Leaders, followers, parents, kids; religious or not; whether business or personal, everybody does it.

We lie to avoid confrontation; improve results; sidestep repercussions.

We lie to our friends, parents, kids, congregations, clergy people, bosses, workers, colleagues and service providers.

From why something/someone is late to income tax to stock option backdating and corporate results to campaign promises and disagreeing ideologies—the list is both endless and all encompassing.

Most of us don’t see ourselves as liars, usually because there are “valid reasons” for it.

But ‘reasons’ don’t change the bottom line and Plato’s words ring as true today as when he spoke them,

“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”

That infection has become a pandemic, spreading from one to another in both obvious and insidious ways.

It’s doubtful that there is any way to actually eradicate lying, but the next time you deviate from the truth think hard about your reasons; most of the time they won’t hold up.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

The economy is improving a bit, enough that companies are doing some hiring. And, just as in the past, the same idiotic attitude is surfacing.

It starts with a reference to the need for employee engagement and that ‘experts’ say that the companies with the best long-term success rates retain and grow their human resource base from within the company to ensure it.

But when a company fulfills its human resource needs by hiring from the outside, in most cases, it’s picking up the “rejects” from other companies.

And that part sends me ballistic.

Of all the totally wrong-headed attitudes I’ve heard on the subject of hiring, there is only one that is comparable and, in fact, they go hand in hand.

During every recession I’ve seen the theme is that the only employees worth hiring are the ones who are still working.

Even now, in a recession that dwarfs the previous ones and companies have cut 50% or even more of their workforce and are still cutting, those who are laid off are tagged as “dead wood” or “difficult.”

My blood still boils when I remember the excellent people who were completely trashed by that attitude.

I do agree that growing people from within is good company policy; however, there are dozens of reasons why a company not only would, but should, hire at levels other than entry.

• No company can go through significant growth and not hire from the outside—it’s a given part of that growth. For example, most startups and high-growth companies have neither the diversification, nor the depth, of talent needed when growth kicks in, so they hire at all levels.
• Hiring strictly at entry level and promoting only from within can create a hidebound culture steeped in a not-invented-here mentality, not only for products, but for processes—as happened at both IBM and HP.

There are dozens of other reasons (think about your own experience), but the reject and the dead wood attitudes are not among them.

The dead wood/difficult premise is BS, flawed, short-sighted and plain stupid.

The common belief that “stars” are independent of their circumstances just doesn’t stand up to analysis.

Most people work to the quality of their managers and the validity of the company’s culture—if they don’t shine it’s because they aren’t engaged; give people good managers and good culture and they can all be stars.

It is beyond stupid to lay work quality issues at the door of employees with no consideration of management or culture.

Image credit: TheTruthAbout… on flickr