I remember working in one job where my supervisor would routinely walk around and mutter his frustrations about specific employees under his breath. In one case, he walked behind three different people and muttered “as soon as I can find a replacement, so-and-so is out of here.” The move was obviously intentional and calculated to start gossip and rumors. At the time I thought the case was isolated until I saw another supervisor do almost the same thing. Supervisor number two would make comments anonymously about certain behaviors, but with enough specificity so as to identify with blatant obviousness exactly who he was referring to. Both supervisors spoke behind people’s backs and made sure to tell everyone except the employee in question. Both of these situations were much earlier in my career and at the time I still tried to convince myself that the cases were oddballs. Unfortunately, I saw the same pattern repeat dozens of times, though the tactics varied.
Sometimes the story plays out with multiple bosses and multiple bad employees. The cesspool festers and creates a company where no one wants to work. I wish I could say that companies like this go out of business, but they don’t. There are always plenty of people whose economic circumstances make it impossible to leave a job no matter how bad it is. There are others who could leave, but won’t, because their attitude sucks. I have a lot of compassion for people who are truly stuck in a bad situation because of factors outside of their control. But I have zero sympathy for people who whine about the consequences of their own actions, especially while continuing the same behavior that creates the conditions they complain about.
Sometimes, problems are not what they seem to be. I think there are a lot of people who own businesses and should not. Usually the problem boils down to money. If you are trying to sell something and they’re simply isn’t enough to man to sustain your company in the market where you are operating, you will never be able to get good employees. Sometimes, we have to be honest with ourselves and admit that our fundamental business model doesn’t work. This level of honesty is rare, because it is much easier and more comfortable to blame somebody else or blame external conditions.
We’ve all heard the same lines:
“You just can’t get good help these days.”
“The talent pool is shallow.”
“Trump/Biden created this problem.”
“The economy is in the toilet right now.”
“The little guy can’t compete with the Amazons of the world.”
I’m not suggesting that any of the above conditions are easy to fix. In fact, some conditions are impossible to fix, or at least impossible to fix in the short term. No one is at fault for conditions outside of their control. But if a business isn’t working, at some point we have to either fix the problem or close the business and do something else for a living. And I think that before we can do either, we have to go back to the source and look at the overall driving purpose behind the business. If you can’t get or keep good employees, I invite you to consider that your own motives are fundamentally wrong. We are surrounded with people who reflect what we need to see in ourselves.
If your only motive is to make as much money as possible, I think most people can accomplish that goal most readily by finding a job. Why build a new company and create an infrastructure from scratch when you can leverage a company that’s already been built? If you are competitive by nature, you might be happier in a sales job where you don’t have to manage delivery of the end product or service. There are plenty of ways to feed your personal ambition without having to build an entire company. So you’ve got to ask yourself: if you want to wear all of the hats and create and enterprise, why? What is the purpose?
Humans need a challenge, and the mindless acquisition of stuff is not a satisfying challenge. People often spend a huge chunk of their lives devoted to the pursuit of money, and after acquiring a sizable stack, they realize with horror that they still aren’t happy. Or then there’s the tragedy of the person who destroys their health pursuing money and then spends all of their money trying to get their health back. Money is a great motivator when we don’t have enough to survive, when we have to sleep on a ratty couch and eat ramen noodles, or when we can’t participate in meaningful social activities due to lack of funds. Once these basic needs are met, a point of diminishing returns quickly sets in, after which additional income doesn’t make us any happier.
I should make the distinction that a lot of people technically own businesses with no aspiration to build anything bigger than themselves. You can be self-employed and make a decent living. But if you want to hire employees and create scale, you need a fundamentally different motive beyond money. Some people find slightly bigger motives with the same basic limitations, such as the pursuit of other vanities such as power, social status, or having a wing of a library named after you. To get beyond vanity, we have to think about the world after we are dead, recalling that we might be dead tomorrow. Furthermore, there is no assurance that anything we leave behind will survive. You can write books, pass on teachings, or leave all kinds of things behind, but 100 years from now, all evidence that you ever existed could be gone from the planet. Everything came from dust and will eventually return to dust.
No one can ultimately be satisfied without doing what we were made to do. Instead of thinking about the future, we need to think about the present. Instead of thinking about what we would like to eventually accomplish years from now, we need to think about what’s the most meaningful thing we can accomplish today. And I think most of us grossly underestimate how much of an impact we can make on the entire world in a given day. One sentence or even one sideways glance can change somebody’s life trajectory, for better or worse. The best opportunities are the ones we didn’t plan for.
I wish I could provide a formula, but I can’t. All we can do is allow spirit to lead us. We don’t need an instruction manual. When we pay attention, we notice opportunities calling out to us in a given moment. Sometimes the purpose of a day is to have a 30-second conversation with a stranger at the bus stop. If you want instructions on what to do next, the best resource I can suggest is to pray and meditate as continuously as you can manage. The second best resource is a teacher or mentor, but it takes effort and persistence to find one and persuade them that you are worth teaching.
So if you have found yourself surrounded by people who don’t give a damn, ask yourself how you would like to change the world today. What would make today exquisitely satisfying? What would it take to go to bed tonight knowing that you really made full use of your day? And what simple thing could you do right now to put yourself on the path to making today a fulfilling day?
