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After decades of work in fairly traditional organizations, some with non-profit and some with for-profit tax statuses, I chose to radically change my career and my life. In particular, after roughly 20 years in executive roles in for profit contexts, I came to realize some uncomfortable truths. To be clear, profit is not inherently bad. In fact, the profit motive is central to economic growth and profit from one business or investment becomes the capital for future investment. Risk taking and hard work merit reward. The problem is that it is often possible to make more money, at least in the short term, by doing things that cause harm and/or are ethically questionable than by committing steadfastly to a set of consistent values and the collective good.
Over time, the dissonance caused by those truths became personally untenable. Of course, that is not true of all the businesses that I had leadership roles in. However, there are certain ownership models for which the core purpose is to generate as great a return on investment as possible, even if that comes at a cost to integrity and/or other stakeholders. Some of the things I came to understand include:
- From an ownership perspective, my job was primarily to make wealthy people more wealthy.
- I dedicated significant time, effort, skill, and commitment to things that often mattered more to other people than to me.
- At the individual level, whatever profit is realized from a business venture or investment is rarely enough. If there is a way to generate five times ROI vs. four times ROI, investors will typically choose that way even if there is collateral damage.
- Relatedly, very rarely is there enough discipline among investors or directors to sacrifice any amount of personal profit for other meaningful gains—long term revenue growth, mission, collective good—even innovation). Short term almost always trumps long term when profit is in question.
- Owners, investors, shareholders, directors, etc. are usually much better at saying the right thing than doing the right thing, particularly if the right thing has any material cost to it.
- My desire to be “successful” and well regarded contributed to my own myopia and allowed me to occasionally be complicit in decisions and actions that were not aligned with professed organizational values, let alone my own values.
- In retrospect, my naivete was stunning. I actually believed that focusing on things that were good for the organization and good for a broad range of stakeholders over time would be appreciated and rewarded. What I learned was that could only be true as an aside if I also overachieved the metrics that made key people more money—and usually in a short time frame.
At some point, the dissonance indeed became untenable, and I had to make what turned out to be some fairly radical changes for my own well being. I began by doing some deep personal work related to values and what I wanted to be true going forward. It started simply enough by shifting from “What is my next job?” to “What do I want to be true in my life and what role will my work play in achieving that truth?”
What I also learned is that if you are willing to make compromises with foundational things in your life, then you suddenly have many, many options open to you. For example, once I was willing to make much less money, live in a smaller home, give up the “status” of executive roles, etc., going back to school (for the fourth time) to complete a graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health became not only viable, but desirable. That decision turned out to be more aligned with what I want to be true in my life than any other professional decision I’ve ever made. It came with substantial sacrifices, but it not only relieved me of the cognitive and affective dissonance I was previously experiencing, it replaced it with a level of congruence that is grounding and sustaining.
Lastly, I still think about the cases in which my decisions and actions were not aligned with my values. I did not bring my best self to those situations and, as a result, was at some level complicit. However, that “failure” now serves as motivation to do better—to make the world at least a little better off as a result of my efforts. To anyone who was harmed by decisions that I did not resist and/or participated in, I am deeply sorry.