The GR Factor

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CHAPTER TWO

What this is all about

Most books that offer advice take a leisurely time getting to the key point. Typically there is a long ramp-up to the punchline. You learn a little – or a lot – about the author’s youth, hear something about his or her business experience and then get a slow waltz to the BIG MESSAGE.  As has been said so frequently about so many things, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve decided to spare you all the preliminaries. Instead, here it is up front.  Based on my forty years of success in various aspects of business here is the essential piece of advice I have to deliver.

This is what I call The GR Factor:

Treat other people the way you want to be treated.

In fact, this is so vitally important for you to know and remember, let me repeat it for emphasis.

Treat other people the way you want to be treated.

If you apply this principle every minute of every day of your life – or as close to that as a human can muster the will to do it – I guarantee you will be successful in business.  You will find success running your own business and you will find success as an executive and manager in a business owned by others. Most importantly, you will find fulfillment and joy in your personal life.  Every day.

How do I know this?  I know this because it has worked for me, and because I have seen it work for others as well. It is a philosophy, a way of life, that breeds success.

If you want to close the book right now, you can – as long as you take to heart the message of treating others as you’d like to be treated and, critically, don’t simply look at that precept as a tool or a technique to be turned on and off like a light switch, but instead make it a vital part of your essential being.  In others words, don’t just do it – LIVE IT.

If you can do that, feel free to close the book now.  You will have received untold value from the price you paid for this advice, and it might be all you need.  You can save yourself the time it will take to read the rest of what I’ve written for you.

But if you are intrigued by this advice or are skeptical that guidance so simple can have a life-changing effect, then I invite you to read on. What I expect to demonstrate to you in the following pages is how this works and why this works IN A BUSINESS CONTEXT. And though you have probably read or heard this advice or something quite like it before, I doubt very much that you have heard it spelled out as a way of furthering your personal success in commerce and industry. And that is what I will concentrate on delivering in the upcoming chapters.

Certainly I am not the first to offer this advice.  Those of you who are either religious and/or have studied religion have no doubt come across this counsel many times. In the widely used King James version of the Bible, Jesus Christ said, And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. In the New American Standard version of the Bible, which uses our common vernacular, the same verse says, Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.

By way of full disclosure, I am a practicing Christian, and I have tried to abide by this rule for the past fifty years. But a study of other religions and belief systems reveals that this concept is not unique to the New Testament, Christianity or even the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Old Testament Leviticus 19:34 is highly studied and often quoted by Jewish scholars. The verse says, The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God.  Slightly earlier in Leviticus (19:18) is the message You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Right now you might be saying to yourself, "I thought I was going to get advice that would help me with my business. I’m not here for Bible study."  That’s fair.  But I’m not quoting the Bible for the sake of promulgating religious beliefs. I’m quoting the Bible to demonstrate how pervasive this simple idea is as a style of living.  Further, I’m proposing to you that adopting this style of living in your business activities is the key to success.

I can quote you similar verses ascribed to Buddha, to Muhammad, to Confucius, to the Greeks Thales and Sextus the Pythagorean.  (Yes, even Sextus the Pythagorean.)  You will find similar admonitions in the Pahlavi Texts of Zoroastrianism, the Tirukkural of the Tamil Tradition, the Torah, the Talmud, the New Testament of the Bible and the Quran.  There are subtle differences in the messages and perhaps less subtle differences in how the messages are understood and, importantly, practiced, but there is no doubt that many of the great philosophers, religious leaders, prophets and even the Savior Himself found the ideal of treating others as one would like to be treated as important – and often central – to the daily observation of a religious life.

You might say, I am not religious; I don’t care who in the deep, dark past uttered this mumbo-jumbo. I live in the present. To you I would make two observations. First, religious observance dates back to the beginning of recorded human history, and it continues to be an important part of the daily life of millions of your contemporaries. It is not an anachronism. Second, for those who do not believe in a God or in religion at all, it is important to grasp that two of the world’s most prevalent secular philosophies – Existentialism and Humanism – pay some homage to the simple entreaty to behave in a manner that promotes the greater good.  The Humanist philosophy is, arguably, more explicit in suggesting that doing good for others is to be encouraged, while the Existentialists (those darn Existentialists) center their thinking around the fact (hope?) that if individuals make their choices wisely they will always trend toward what is best for the largest number.

Again, all this is cited not in the attempt to promote a single religion or philosophy, but instead to demonstrate that the guiding premise of this book, which is designed to improve your business fortunes, is a premise that has deep roots in antiquity and, at the same time, is widely expressed and believed today.  Again, if at this point you say, I got it, and you close the book, you will reap the many benefits of adhering to this style of living IF YOU ACT ON IT DAILY.

And this is where I believe I can provide help. Many of you might be thinking, yes, I’ve heard that before, sounds reasonable, but in my daily life, and especially in my business life, I can’t act that way.  I’d be nothing but a pushover; in minutes I’d be crushed by more aggressive, me-first competitors.  But that is where I believe you would be very wrong, and the purpose of the remainder of this book is to prove that to you…and to demonstrate to you how treating others as you want to be treated is indeed the best way for business success.

And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:31)

"The work of righteousness will be peace, And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." (Isaiah 32:17)

CHAPTER THREE

How do we want to be treated?

To suggest to you that you treat others as you want to be treated begs the obvious question, how do you want to be treated? And the answer is not as simple as you might believe at first blush. Consider the question seriously for a moment. At first you might believe that you want to lead a stressless life of comfort and ease, a life in which no burdens are placed upon you.  That way you would have all the time in the world to do what you want to do. But if you consider this for a moment, do you want to lead a life in which you are pampered, coddled, medicated and fed fresh grapes peeled by nubile virgins? No, really, do you? Yes, it might appear appealing at first glance, but how long do you think you could remain happy in a challenge-free environment?  Looking at the issue through an adult lens, would you be fulfilled with a life of pure hedonism? Or is the way you’d genuinely like to live your life a manner that offers you the self-respect and self-fulfillment of contributing to a just, caring society?

While a life of narcissistic pleasure-seeking might seem desirable at first glance, psychologists will tell you that individuals who live in circumstances approximating it typically develop a lot of problems. Rather than finding fulfillment in hedonism, individuals come to feel that their lives are purposeless and empty. Studies have shown people typically discover more personal happiness from behaviors that enhance their sense of self worth, and a generally acknowledged way to improve your sense of worth is by helping others.

This is not to imply, however, that every waking minute should be devoted to the service of others with no regard for ourselves and our own well-being.  That style of living won’t lead to overall happiness either, because while basing all our decisions around our personal desires is a trap that will ultimately lead to alienation from others, doing the exact opposite — basing all our efforts on pleasing others — may lead to complete loss of self.  In other words, some me-time that doesn’t negatively impact others is good.  One just needs to avoid the all-me-all-the-time mindset and behavior pattern that so many have adopted these days.

So how do we want to be treated? If you ask this question, many are likely to respond that they want to be treated fairly.  The difficult part of that desire is to determine what is fair. To many it equates with being treated the same way as everyone else — no special treatment good or bad. But to others it means getting all the advantages or perceived advantages they view others are receiving.  Peeling back the onion, what they seek isn’t fairness, it is unfair advantages that are in their favor rather than against them.

Since I was a small child I heard from my mother and father that life is not fair, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.  Musings on the unfairness of life abound through religious texts, the works of the great philosophers and on to the essays and screeds populating the corners of the Internet.

Since the sense of what is fair and what is not on a human scale is subjective, it seems that one’s place on the fairness/unfairness scale is equally subjective and, all other things being equal (and we know they are not) individuals will look at particular circumstances in their life as being unfair to them largely because they seem more favorable to others.

Take this example from my life. When I was a pre-teen I wanted a gasoline-powered go kart. A couple of other kids in the neighborhood had them, and I thought it would be cool to have one.  I started saving up my money to buy one, perhaps with the hope that my parents would kick in a little money, too.  But somewhere into this process my parents told me succinctly, No go kart. I’m not sure why, but I suspect now that I was told no for financial reasons; we as a family simply didn’t have the money to afford a moderately expensive toy like a go kart at that time.

So other kids in the neighborhood had go karts, and I didn’t — and couldn’t — have a go kart.  I guess you could say that is unfair.  I might even have told my parents I thought it was unfair to which, if parental responses follow true-to-form, they would’ve replied, We know, and as we have told you before, life is not fair.’

But looking back at it through the long lens of time, I now do not consider that my pre-teen inability to obtain a go kart was even mildly unfair to me. Yes, others my age had go karts and I didn’t.  Seems unfair, I guess.  But that is only if you consider go kart/lack of go kart to be the central issue on what one considers fairness.  In those terms I was the aggrieved party.  Others had go karts; I didn’t.  That’s unfair to me, I might have claimed.

But when I look back at all the circumstances of my youth versus others, despite my heinous lack of a go kart, I have to believe that life was no more unfair to me than it was to anyone else in my circumstances and by many measures I had advantages that could be considered unfair to others. For instance, I had two loving parents with high moral principles who communicated both love and ethical boundaries to me and to my brother.  In retrospect, that alone is far more valuable than having a go kart.

So, again, peering at this through the perspective gained from decades on this planet, I have come to believe two things:  First, from our Earthly perch as human beings it is impossible to determine what is fair and what isn’t. Second, most people who say they are seeking fairness are actually in need of mercy.

An important thing to understand about mercy is that mercy is typically not earned; it is received as a gift. The recipient of mercy may well not deserve it based on their words and their behavior, but granting mercy has immense benefits for both the donor and the recipient. In the vernacular you might describe mercy as giving someone the benefit of the doubt.  And I think that’s what all of us want.  We want to be given the benefit of the doubt.

Many of us like to present a