Take a Stand Now, Or Let Your Business Ethics Die In Darkness

For years, I have associated myself with people who assert the belief that business can be more than just profitable, that commerce can be empathetic, human, even beautiful.

Over the last decade, in contradiction to this belief, I have watched the human side of business culture wither into a mere vestige of its former self.

Most painfully, I’ve watched marketplace communications about purpose and empathy in business degrade into mere cover for a retreat from human connection and responsibility.

This weekend, the descent of business culture into inhumanity hit a new low when Jeff Bezos ordered the editorial board of The Washington Post to abandon its endorsement of Kamala Harris. The command from Bezos came just a few hours before executives from another company he owns, Blue Origin, met with Donald Trump about the possibility of lucrative aerospace contracts from the US federal government.

The transaction was corruption, plain and simple. Bezos had promised, when he bought The Washington Post a few years ago, that he would never allow his business interests to compromise the journalistic integrity of the newspaper. The dishonesty of that statement is obvious now.

The threat that business culture faces in this particular historical moment is also quite obvious.

The question of the moment is about much more than whether businesses will keep any specific promise. The question people in business must face in the coming days is whether they will choose the values of truth and trust, or will choose to bend to the demands of power.

Jeff Bezos chose to sacrifice truth and trust for the sake of power. The Washington Post lost the trust of the American people when its owner forced the paper to abandon its commitment to truth.

Given the immense wealth held personally by Jeff Bezos, and the titanic amount of power held by Amazon over the day-to-day machinery of commerce worldwide, no one in business has now the option to remain neutral. Bezos and Amazon set the standards for how business runs.

Bezos has in effect declared that corruption will be the standard operating system for business.

If you work in business, whether you’re an executive, somewhere in middle management, or a freelance consultant, you now are faced with the decision about whether you’re going to go along with this new arrangement.

Are you willing to say and do what leaders like Donald Trump demand of you, accepting it as part of what it means to be in business? If this is your choice, understand that this option does not come without a cost. It will require your acceptance of business as a cynical game of power, without human values, without empathy, and without trust.

The alternative option is not easy. It could mean the sacrifice of a great deal of potential business, the loss of a job, or even a career. It may result in the end of professional relationships, because you’ll be taking a stand because you’ll be taking a stand in contradiction to what some people expect you to do.

On the other hand, isn’t taking a stand what business is all about?

Taking a stand is at the foundation of a truly human-centered way of doing business. Taking a stand is the basis of trust. It’s about declaring who you are, and what you can offer, and then staying true to that, even when people with power want you to do something different.

If you make the choice that Jeff Bezos made, you may get access to money and influence in the short term. In order to do so, however, you will have to commit to the only true and trustworthy thing that will remain in your professional identity: That you have become the kind of person who will do anything for money.

As for myself, I would rather die than go along with that way of doing business.

We live in a perilous moment, with tremendous social forces on the move that seem beyond the ability of any of us to control. That powerlessness, however, is an illusion.

Although no single one of us can stand alone against the likes of Jeff Bezos or Donald Trump, together we have the power to resist.

If you choose to resist, now is the time to take action.

Speak up, in public, about what you stand for and what you refuse to stand for.

By making a public statement, you are making a commitment that you will stick to, even when it’s not easy to do.

This is the do-or-die moment. There is no time to spare.

If you care, stand up. Speak up.

Show them that you mean business, and show them what that means.