18 Dec #255 – Is Your Business in the Twilight Zone?
It was March 2, 1962, when episode 24 of season 3 of the Twilight Zone first aired. The episode was titled “To Serve Man” (there is a link at the bottom if you want to watch this roughly 25-minute show). It started out sounding like business a better way in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities, but it took a drastic turn toward the Twilight Zone and what we call business as usual–business in the way of the world.
SPOILER ALERT: I am sorry to say that this post is a gigantic spoiler.
Recent headlines have highlighted egregious behavior by a number of organizations we think have been operating “in the Twilight Zone” of business as usual. Specifically, we are talking about insurers and opioid manufacturers (with the help of their consultants). But they are by no means the only ones.
Twilight Zone: To Serve Man
In the Twilight Zone episode, nine-foot-tall aliens called Kanamits land on earth. This is their first greeting, delivered at the United Nations:
Ladies and gentlemen of the earth, we greet you in peace and friendship. . .. Our intentions are honorable. We desire above all things to help the people of earth, to establish embassies here, and in the near future to set up reciprocal visits between earth people and Kanamits.
In answer to questions from UN ambassadors, the Kanamit said:
We are here to help you.
There is nothing ulterior in our motives–nothing at all. . .. We ask only that you trust us. Only that you simply trust us.
That could be the implicit message of almost any product advertising campaign or corporate “About Us” section.
Then the Kanamit left a book on the table at the UN. Its title was eventually decoded as “To Serve Man“, seemingly a confirmation of their altruistic motives.
Eventually, the Kanamits begin trips to visit their planet. Thousands of people go, and thousands more eagerly await their turn. As the chief US cryptographer goes up the boarding ramp to the spacecraft, his assistant comes running, yelling:
Mr. Chambers, don’t get on that ship. The rest of the book–To Serve Man–its, its a cookbook!
Refresher: The Biblical Nature and Purpose of Work and Business
Loving by Serving–The Nature of Work
By our nature as creations in the image of God, we are given gifts of creativity and productivity through specific skills and physical and mental abilities. Some are given a gift of physical strength, some an artistic ability, some a logical mind, some a mathematical mind, some a poetic mind, some a business mind, some a gift of nurture and care, some a gift of ideating, some a gift of craftsmanship, some a gift of executing, some a gift of elocution, and some athletic ability.
Work is the platform God created in Genesis 2:15 for putting these gifts to creative and productive use for His glory. In Genesis 1:28, God commanded us to steward His creation, and 1 Peter 4:10-11 declares that we are to use these gifts–the basis of our work and stewardship–“to serve one another“:
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace…in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
Humans are meant to serve one another through work by applying their gifts to steward creation and promote flourishing of that creation. Through our work, these gifts come together to permit us, collectively, to pursue the Creation Mandate to cultivate and steward God’s creation. Work is a VEHICLE for pursuing the Creation Mandate to steward and cultivate God’s creation.
When we reflect the image of God by exercising our God-given gifts through work to serve one another, we are also living out the commandments to love God and love one another. Work is a VEHICLE for living out those commandments.
Loving by Serving–The Nature of Business
Cultural commentator Seth Godin observed:
A business is a construct, an association of human beings combining capital and labor to make something. That business has precisely the same social responsibilities as the people that it consists of.
We believe Godin’s statement about social responsibilities holds true for Biblical purpose as well. Organizations (including businesses) are platforms that facilitate humans working together in relationship–living out their purpose to use their skills to fulfill the Creation Mandate and love each other through service.
Organizations such as businesses have intrinsic Kingdom value because they are a creation of God’s image-bearers that provides the platform and the opportunity for humans to come together in relationship to express and fulfill their humanity through work by producing and promoting flourishing and “building for the Kingdom” in ways that could not be accomplished by people working alone.
Although the nature of an organization is that it has intrinsic value because it is a creation of God’s image-bearers fulfilling (whether or not knowingly) the Creation Mandate, an organization’s full intrinsic Kingdom value–the flourishing it could unleash–can only be realized if its purpose, values and priorities align with Biblical purposes, values and priorities–with God’s restoration plan for His Kingdom.
Embedding the Biblical principle of work as service in the culture and heart of an organization is essential to faithful integrity, because it is essential in order for each person in the organization to be fully human by understanding that the work they are doing is using God-given gifts to serve others for a BIGGER purpose, which itself is essential in order for them to flourish. It also reinforces the importance of relationships, which is another of our Imago Dei characteristics.
Love by Serving–The Purpose of Work and Business
The nature of work in God’s design is that it is how we use our skills to obey His commandments through SERVICE, and the nature of business in God’s design is that it is a vehicle through which people come together to live out the purpose of work (i.e., SERVICE).
An organization’s pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing requires promoting and facilitating flourishing for EVERYONE touched by the organization through the creation of opportunities, economic prosperity, goods and services that help families and communities to flourish and by extending its culture of Shalom to all people it touches.
Business in the Twilight Zone
A faithful leader seeking to lead with faithful integrity toward Biblical flourishing faces a foundational choice between two starkly different options with profound implications. One option is business a better way — business aligned with Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities, according to God’s Kingdom. The other option is business as usual — business in “the way of the world” or, more precisely, according to “the kingdom of this world.” It is business in the “Twilight Zone”.
Perhaps the most consistent theme over the last 251 posts is that profit is not bad (in fact, it is good and necessary) but becomes a problem when it becomes the purpose of a business. We call it Profit as Purpose, and it is a hallmark of business as usual–business according to the world’s beliefs, values and priorities.
When a business is operating in the “Twilight Zone” of business as usual and profit is the end toward which it is managed:
• People and the rest of creation can never be more than tools of production to be managed toward that end (“No one can serve two masters“, Matthew 6:24).
• People will be valued based on their perceived profit contribution, and value is likely to be based on short-term profit or stock value.
• Decisions will be made mainly based on financial metrics, because they measure profit and they are easily measurable.
• Because an organization manages to its purpose, a key role of the organizational culture of the business will be to drive profit. Business culture can be designed (or will just emerge) to drive or inspire people to perform at higher levels and contribute more to profitability through manipulative mechanisms like bonuses/commissions/promotions and the fear of elimination or demotion. People may even be driven across ethical or legal lines in pursuit of that purpose.
As a consequence, the nature and purpose of work and business changes from God’s idea of serving people to the Kanamits’ version of serving people. There is an ulterior motive. Rather than being the true beneficiaries of service, employees, customers and vendors are means to be manipulated toward the end of Profit as Purpose. Those stakeholders are treated well to the extent it is seen as contributing to (or at least not hurting) the bottom line.
Like the Kanamit, the organization may have a lofty purpose statement and admirable stated values. It may even say that it desires “above all things to help the people of earth.” But the Bible tells us there can only be one primary purpose that will be its master, and the kingdom of the world says that purpose should be maximizing profit.
Like the Kanamit, an organization might say “trust us“, claiming “We have several purposes, and profit is just one.” At the end of the day, there can only be one primary priority for the organization that will win out–other “priorities” usually get reduced to being “means” or “strategies”, which means they will be sacrificed if they no longer serve the higher priority or if they jeopardize the higher priority.
There is nothing ulterior in our motives--nothing at all. (The Kanamit)
Some Businesses Operating in the Twilight Zone
While we believe any organization pursuing Profit as Purpose is like the Kanamit, not all organizations pursuing business as usual get their cookbooks decoded on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. They may never reach the point of “at the end of the day” when the ugliness of Profit as Purpose is exposed.
Recently, some Kanamit cookbooks have been decoded in the news. A few months ago, in post #238 (“Pay Today” Revisited), we highlighted news about how Saks Fifth Avenue reportedly treated some of its smaller vendors. Press reports painted a picture of an organization conserving cash by not paying, or stretching out for months payments to, its little vendors, particularly those unlikely to pursue costly litigation.
More recently, the ugliness of Profit as Purpose and business as usual have been exposed in the industries of insurance, opioid manufacture and even consulting.
Insurance
The tragic assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO has shown a spotlight on Twilight Zone practices of healthcare insurers. Unfortunately, these practices are not unique to healthcare insurance.
The assassin’s bullet casings reportedly bore the words “deny”, “delay” and “depose”. Some have connected the words to a 2010 book titled Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It about tactics of property and casualty insurers to avoid paying claims.
Presumably, insurance companies try to deny or delay claims because they have a good chance of succeeding against the “little guy”, and success is good for the bottom line (particularly if their competitors are also manipulating customers in the Twilight Zone).
In addition to failing to serve their customers in the way God intends (and possibly in the way their contracts require), they are also failing to serve their employees by cultivating or allowing a culture that requires humans to treat other humans badly at times of personal crisis, tragedy and loss. We believe people want to treat other people with care and compassion. People were designed by God to flourish and become fully human by living in accordance with His design.
In his book Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller writes:
People have innate consciences that are preloaded with senses of honesty, justice, love, the Golden Rule, and so on. . . . This universal knowledge of God and of good—this aspect of natural revelation—has been called “first-order beliefs.” All people hold these beliefs at some level, even if their conscious, intellectual, culturally conditioned “second-order beliefs” deny them utterly.
Business as usual encourages or requires employees to suppress or deny these natural inclinations. It is another aspect of the “uglification” we talked about in post #139 (Beautify or Uglify).
Opioids and Consulting
The ugly behavior of opioid manufacturers, particularly Purdue Pharma, is not new news, but the complicit role of McKinsey & Company has recently been in the headlines. On December 13, the Wall Street Journal reported that McKinsey apologized for its role advising Purdue as part of a $650 million Federal settlement.
For years, prosecutors have been investigating how McKinsey advised clients including Purdue Pharma, Endo International and Mallinckrodt on strategies and practices to maximize their sales of opioid products . . .. McKinsey consultants advised Purdue’s sales team to pursue healthcare providers it knew wrote high volumes of OxyContin prescriptions and spend less time on doctors who prescribed the opioid medication the least, according to court records. McKinsey also advised both Purdue and Endo on how to target the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for sales of their products, the court records show.
It seems McKinsey helped the Opioid manufacturers figure out how to more effectively manipulate customers into tools for Profit as Purpose, even to the physical detriment of those customers. As bad often leads to worse, McKinsey also apologized for the actions of a partner who was driven to crossing a legal line–obstructing justice by destroying documents about Purdue.
Can We/Should We
Treating stakeholders, whether employees, customers or vendors, poorly to maximize profit reflects a business as usual “Can We” rather than a business a better way “Should We” approach. When faced with a choice, people in a “Can We” culture are explicitly or implicitly rewarded for asking “Can We“ choose the alternative that most aligns with a WHY of Profit as Purpose. Questions might look like:
• Can we take advantage of stakeholders or treat them badly without violating the law?
• Can we take advantage of stakeholders or treat them badly without losing employees, customers, or access to products or services critical to our business?
• Can we take advantage of stakeholders or treat them badly without reputational harm?
• Can we take advantage of stakeholders or treat them badly without being sued?
• Can we achieve a net increase in profit by taking advantage of stakeholders or treating them badly, even accounting for the consequences and costs of doing so.
Business a better way in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities requires cultivating a “Should We” culture in which people are explicitly or implicitly encouraged to ask things like:
• Are we honoring the spirit of our promises?
• Are we honoring what our stakeholder reasonably believed was our promise?
• Are we treating our stakeholders as we would wish to be treated?
• Are we treating our stakeholders in a way we would be honored to see reported in the press?
• Are we misleading stakeholders in our communications, either by overstating or omitting the truth?
• Is the way we are honoring our promises and treating our stakeholders doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons?
• Is the way we are honoring our promises and treating our stakeholders consistent with what we say we stand for and who we say we are?
• Does the way we are honoring our promises and treating our stakeholders glorify God?
The Importance of Trust
Even the Kanamit understood the importance of trust when he said. “We ask only that you trust us. Only that you simply trust us.” Losing the trust of stakeholders has consequences.
We believe efficient commerce, stakeholder loyalty, healthy relationships, and a cohesive community require trust. A 2019 Forbes article titled “The Trust Crisis in Business” noted:
A lack of trust is a significant threat to an organization’s ability to grow, according to more than half of the CEOs surveyed by PwC in 2016.
Stephen Covey wrote, “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
Trust is fragile. It is easily lost and, once lost, difficult to restore. Even worse, when someone professes a Biblical faith and fails to be trustworthy, their hypocrisy reflects to the world an inaccurate and unglorifying image of God.
Being trustworthy can get complicated in a broken world. One challenge is the pressure of the world to conform to business as usual. Business as usual is built on assumptions of Scarcity and Self-Interest, both of which exert pressure to maximize profit by shifting “serving stakeholders” from being the dinner guests to being the entree.
PERSONAL NOTE (from PM): I am sorry to say that I have experienced “Can We” Twilight Zone behavior from several organizations in recent months. Here are three examples:
• USAA: In May of this year, our car was rear-ended while driving through Dallas. Although only the liftgate was damaged, USAA immediately declared it a total loss and offered a settlement amount that was thousands of dollars below what I believed was the value, based on market research. For two months I went back and forth with them (at one point having to call them out on social media to get any response). Eventually, they agreed to “re-run the quote” and it came out where I had told them it should have been two months earlier. Thankfully, we had other vehicles that gave us the ability to push back. Someone relying on one car would not have had the luxury of fighting and would have been eaten by the Kanamit.
• City of Gloucester, MA: In October, a family member was in Gloucester, MA and needed transport to an emergency room. A bill came from the City’s EMS for almost $2,400. I learned that the City does not contract with any insurers (because they can get away with it). Their defense is that many Massachusetts municipalities don’t bother to contract with insurers. I also learned that the City runs the 911 service and sends all calls to its own EMS even though there is another private ambulance service in town that does contract with insurance companies (again, because they can). We would have only owed $800 if we had been given a choice. We were eaten by the Kanamit.
XMSirius: I am annoyed every year when SiriusXM automatically renews my subscription at triple what I was paying because my “special promotion” expired. I have to call, spend at least 30 minutes on the phone (while the agent tries several price levels, always needing to “check with their manager”), and say the magic words “I am going to cancel” in order to receive another year at the “special promotion” price–and then I have to fight about a credit for the month they already charged at the higher price. (There are entire websites devoted to negotiating SiriusXM pricing.) A SiriusXM executive told me once that they know the process annoys customers who call, but the vast majority of people will simply accept the higher price. The bottom-line benefit of treating customers like the entree instead of as guests exceeds the cost of lost customers and lost trust.
ESSENCE: Recent headlines have highlighted a number of organizations that we think have been operating “in the Twilight Zone” of business as usual–business in the way of the world. (Our reference is to a famous TZ episode in which aliens were exposed as wanting people for an entree rather than as dinner guests.) In God’s design, work is a vehicle for using our skills to obey His commandments through service, and business is a vehicle through which people come together to live out that purpose of work. When a business is operating in the “Twilight Zone” of business as usual and maximizing profit rather than flourishing is the end toward which it is managed, the nature of work and business changes from God’s idea of serving people as dinner guests to the alien version of serving people as the entree. An organization’s pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing requires prioritizing stakeholders as the beneficiaries of obedience to God’s commandments rather than the tools of an ulterior motive.
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