Last week Kristen King asked Should Religion Be Part of Your Brand? She said “I wish companies would keep their religious views to themselves…[it’s] unprofessional and it makes me angry.”

It makes me more than angry.

Kristen used Covenant Transport and a design element on their truck that says “It Is Not A Choice It Is A Child” as her example (read her post, I’m not going to repeat it all here).

One of the comments said, “To try to dictate that I should not stand up for the rights of human beings is tyrannical… Would you want to work with a practicing Murder?”

But as Kristen says, “Morality and ethics according to whom?”

Last year in Are ethical values set or fluid? I said “Universally, murder has always been considered bad, but what constitutes murder is ever changing.”

For centuries killing your wife was considered bad taste, but since she was property it wasn’t a crime; certainly killing your slave wasn’t murder in ancient times and in the pre-Civil War days it depended on where you lived and what you believed.

The Army of God thinks it’s OK to bomb abortion clinics and kill the staff, while Osama bin Laden wants to kill “infidels.”

Religion, like sex, used to be private. Now it is evangelized, advertised and promoted the same way as any other commercial product.

But commercial products don’t vilify you for not buying them.

As I said in my comment, “I am so tired of having almost every person I meet explain to me why
1. I’m a horrible person because I don’t have “the true faith” and will go to Hell.
2. The only true faith is their version and if I don’t switch I’ll go to Hell.
3. They’ll pray for me.
I find number three the most insulting, since it dismisses everything else and assumes their superiority.”

Some defend religion in business as nitch marketing, but where is the line drawn? I’ve been on the receiving end when a “Christian” business owner found out that I didn’t share his beliefs. Fortunately, the court didn’t agree that the differences were an acceptable reason for violating a contract.

There may be valid reasons to mention religion, such as Hebrew National (mentioned by one commenter), but Hebrew National doesn’t spend its money lobbying to make kosher the law of the land.

I passionately subscribe to S.G. Tallentyre’s (not Voltaire) statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” only I don’t disapprove, I just disagree.

What I disapprove of is the effort to cram it down my throat; to claim that YOUR morality, YOUR judgments, YOUR beliefs are CORRECT and should color every decision I make or become the law of the land.

What do YOU think?

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This week we’re supposed to write about “your business epiphany – what one moment influenced your career or business more than any other?”

Epiphanies are funny things. What we think is an epiphany (AKA, an ah-ha!! moment) when it happens may become more mundane in 20/20 hindsight, whereas a passing thought becomes monumental wisdom in that same hindsight.

What epiphanies I can identify fall in the second category.

Here is the one that’s had the greatest impact on me, because it stopped my laying all those coulda/shoulda/woulda trips on myself.

Don’t judge who you were and what you did in the past based on who you are and what you know now.

It wasn’t until I had to explain it to someone else that I was forced to think through exactly what I meant. Here is how I explained it then and have continued to explain it to clients and others ever since.

Each of us is composed of multiple, past “me’s,” each a different, stand-alone version from the current one.

When you look at past actions (Why did I…) you need to first ask yourself if you made the best decision/action possible based on the information you had at the time in conjunction with the person you were at that time.

If, in fact, you did, then the you you-are-now has no right to judge, i.e., beat up on, the previous you for that decision/action.

This doesn’t mean that you need to condone everything—today’s you may decide that in the future you should move in a different direction, do more research or whatever—but it does preclude you from taking your former self to task.

I hope you’ll consider saving yourself a lot of grief by integrating this idea into your own life.

What was your most important epiphany?

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When it comes to charity, I’m very opinionated (no surprise there), so I thought I’d take this opportunity to present the good, my favorite charity—that you probably never heard of, and rant a bit about the bad and the ugly—two things that really tick me off.

The Good: I have a real passion for the M3 Foundation, on the web at M3boys.org. I like M3 because it’s successfully attacking the roots of one of the greatest problems in America today—keeping young, black boys in school.

“Removing the Achievement Gap for African American Boys—Boys are the most important issue facing the African American community today. With 1/3 of all black men in the USA in the penal system and more than 70% drop-out rate in high school, the situation is catastrophical. By their mid 30’s, more than 60% of black men who dropped out of school have spent time in prison.”

What’s more, it’s doing it on a shoestring budget with a highly innovative approach that’s showing enormous success in its first roll-out.

“In its first year, M3 assisted the boys in achieving average improvements in mathematics grades from 1.9 to 3.14 (from a D/F grade to a B). The average in the boys GPA increased from 2.4 to 3.0… M3 has since expanded to work in all the middle schools in Berkeley with similar success.”

Pretty cool.

The Bad: Every fundraising business or charity where too much money goes to pay the overhead, it’s the reason I never respond to any solicitation in the mail. If I like the hype I check the charity out myself and then send a donation direct to the headquarters—never the address on the solicitation. And when checking out the charity I focus on financials using Charity Navigator when possible or just digging if it isn’t listed there. I look for around an 80/20 split, with the 80% going to support programs.

The Ugly: Avoiding real estate taxes on property that isn’t mission related—especially common among religious organizations. For example, way back when I lived in Denver, CO, the largest owner of apartment buildings was the Catholic Church. It paid no income or real estate taxes because the church was tax exempt, yet those properties used municipal resources without limit. I have no problem exempting actual places of worship and associated community centers, but not the rest. The same goes for other tax-exempt abuses—do leaders really need fleets of expensive automodiles, first class/private jet travel, (multiple) mansions, etc. to accomplish their missions?

So much for Friday, now here’s the Fun. For all you pilots, expilots and wannabepilots who love flying, or if you’re just plain curious, click here for a flight over the mountains. Just bring the Dramamine if you’re prone to a queasy stomach!

What are your good, bad and uglies?

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It has always bothered me that influence is listed as one of the top defining characteristics of leadership.

Influence—good or bad—is anchored in the ability to sway people through communications, but that has nothing to do with the ability to implement and execute.

Am I off-base here? Are people whose rhetoric fires up those around them, filling them with a passionate desire to accomplish X, but are incapable of doing the rest of what it takes to make it happen truly leaders?

You tell me.

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Argh, it’s making me crazy. I am sick and tired of seeing the word ‘leader’ in conjunction with a name just because that person is in front of the line or at the top of the heap. That does not make them a leader.

Just last week I wrote about temporary leaders and last fall I ranted on that the L word was used and abused.

At that time, Rhett Laubach cited John Maxwell’s definition of leadership—influence, but there must be more than that, whether positive or negative, to the mantle of leader.

I think that ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ are thrown around much too freely.

What do you think?

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I have gas pains, you have gas pains and so we rant.

Rants don’t alleviate gas pain, but they do relieve pressure.

We rant about crude prices and the mean oil producing countries that are more concerned with their own internal economy than with being nice and increasing production.

We rant about the oil companies and accuse them of manipulating prices.

Not that our rants aren’t mostly true, but…

There is something else going on.

Alkylate—or the lack of it.

‘The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of [alkylate] will set the price of summer gasoline – not inventory levels.”

What’s alkylate I hear (most) of you ask.

“…a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.” It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago…”

Where does it come from?

“Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a byproduct of the refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output… “

Of course the effort is recent, planning ahead, AKA, strategic thinking, goes against accepted business practice.

Should the oil companies have seen this coming?

Be sure to check out another other Fun Friday post at Talk Stock Trading

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As most of you know I’ve been writing a series on healthcare, linking to articles detailing the actions of doctors/healthcare professionals, insurance companies and financial institutions. What’s ahppening as opposed to political retoric of what should happen.

But last night I got to thinking.

The stuff the artilces describe isn’t new, it’s been going on for years. Sure, some are new wrinkles, but in general it’s all been around for quite a while.

Why suddenly all these articles? Why is the light being shown and the rocks turned over? What’s different?

Because it’s an election year? Unlikely, this stuff was going on four years ago, but there were no exposés about medical staff not washing their hands or drug companies financial involvement with doctors starting while they’re still in medical school.

So what’s new? What do you think has changed? What’s going on?

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I’m always looking for a way to have some fun with Leadership Turn, especially if I can involve you. Here’s what I came up with.

Every Sunday I post three off-beat quotes (6 AM, noon, and 4 PM Eastern Time) from famous people or media and you respond with another strange quote either from the same person or on a similar or connected topic—the further out or more outrageous the quote the better.

If the connection isn’t fairly obvious it’s up to you to explain it.

First up this Valentine’s week comes from the dark side. I remember reading about this in the newspaper. It showcases the absolute worst in ignorance, stupidity and politics.

“People who are raped—who are truly raped—the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work, and they don’t get pregnant.” —Henry Aldridge, North Carolina State Representative, in Esquire, 1996.

(After the speech the NC Legislature reduced the funds for abortions for poor women from $1.2 million to $50,000 and rewarded Aldridge by appointing him co-chair of the Committee on Human Resources, overseeing day care, services for the poor and abortion funding.)

Your turn:)

The US is considered the most litigious society in the world. I used to wonder if the level of bad judgment/selfishness/ greed/immoral/stupid/etc., reasoning behind many lawsuits here was also found in other countries, then I realized that people are people so they probably were.I never researched the question (it didn’t warrant the time), but a bit of proof for my assumption came my way a few days ago not surprisingly from the country with the second highest number of lawyers per capita: US: Lawyers: 1,143,358 Pop: 303MM P/L:265; Spain Lawyers:114,143 Pop: 45MM P/L:395

Here’s the story, “A speeding motorist who killed a teenage cyclist is suing the boy’s parents over damage to his luxury car, the government says.”

The driver was going 100 mph in a 55 mph zone and the boy wasn’t wearing reflective clothing so the court found them equally at fault. (I find the ‘equal’ hard to swallow.)

“Delgado, whose insurance company paid Iriondo’s parents $48,500 in compensation for their son’s life, filed a suit in late 2006 to recover $29,400 in damages to his car and car rental costs, the ministry traffic report said…”It’s the only way I have to claim my money back,” Delgado was quoted as saying…”

Yup, people are people the world over and all the reasons listed above are alive and well and living abroad.

Do you know of a lawsuit that fits this profile?

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OKaaaaaaaay. Here’s Wal-Mart as white knight riding forth to save the masses and bring relief to the environment and health care crisis.Wal-Mart is positioning itself as a do-the-right-thing leader. In a speech yesterday “…president and CEO Lee Scott today said the company would continue to demonstrate leadership and work for change on major issues important to Wal-Mart’s customers, communities, associates and suppliers worldwide. …working to lead an effort by major global retailers to create common social and environmental standards for suppliers. The company will also require all of its suppliers to meet specific environmental, social and quality standards and it will make compliance with those standards part of its contracts… “What if we extended our mission of saving people money so they can live better…“”

Isn’t that great? Have you seen the ads for $4 dollar prescriptions? Terrific, right? Gee, maybe a leopard really can change its spots.

But before you get too excited take a look at another article in Business Week called The Ugly Side of Microlending.

And remember that CEO Lee Scott is at the top of the approval chain for this move.

Wal-Mart Stores, which obtained a Mexican banking license a year ago, began offering loans for purchases at 16 of its 997 Mexican outlets in November. In the U.S., the retailer markets itself as a friend to the budget-conscious. In Mexico, it charges interest rates that might set off popular and political revolts back home, although Wal-Mart describes its terms as appropriate to the Mexican market. At one store west of Mexico City, a 32-inch LG plasma TV with a price tag of $957 can ultimately cost as much as $1,474, thanks to a 52-week payment plan that carries an annual percentage rate (APR) of 86%.

Doesn’t that warm the cockles of your heart? Wring your profits out of the poorest of the poor while positioning yourself as the leader in “saving people money so they can live better.”

What do you think?
Is hypocrisy and social irresponsibility alive and well at Wal-Mart or have they truly turned over a new leaf?

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