I read a curious book several years ago as a young child. It was called “Devil’s Guard” and was supposed to be a sort of verbal history of a battalion of the French Foreign Legion operating in Vietnam during the time when the French were fighting the Viet Minh – forerunner of the Vietcong. The author said it was the result of an interview conducted over days of that battalion’s commander, someone by the name, or nom de guerre, if you like, of “Hans Josef Wagemueller”. That battalion comprised former Wehrmacht soldiers, paratroopers and members of the Waffen SS. Most of you reading this might recoil at the idea of reading such a devilish book, but I remind you that you have probably also read or heard about “The Screwtape Letters” written by C.S. Lewis so long ago. Sometimes it is good to be aware of what others think about us, because of what they have heard about, seen, or experienced. I would wager that, most of the time, we would not like what we discover. However, it is good for us to take note and make course corrections or even change course if we know that doing so is right. We will not like it, but we need to DO it. There was a short paragraph in Chapter Five which went:
There was good order in Japan—as there used to be in Germany. The French housekeeping was nothing but a giant whorehouse from maps to machine guns. Nothing ever functioned properly. Not even the water closets.
I use that as a segway, if you like, to the question of whether we are running value-producing businesses or whether we are endemically running “Operation Whorehouse”. The underlying thought is whether our operations are run according to the principles of good order and discipline, which result in having good stuff in our societies that actually WORK. It is essential, of course, for our companies to be actually making money, or turning a profit. How is that maintained, assuming you do ACTUALLY turn a profit? By maintaining homeostasis throughout your company, for a start. If you are not healthy, you cannot do your own best work, even if you believe that you take great delight in what you yourself can produce and not see yourself simply as a cog in a giant corporate profiteering entity. If you rake in lots of money because you are a great schmoozer and can sell ice to Eskimos, well, that also takes a great deal of personal self-discipline and order. Even if it is self-discipline and order so as to sell stuff to people who don’t need it and which you yourself would not buy. Many character qualities work both ways, for good or for evil. You can be diligent to do good and you can be diligent to do evil, for example. You can strive to produce food in a manner which honours the way plants and animals were meant to live, or you can produce frankenstein food using “Synthetic Biology”. Both require diligence. By the way, I do not endorse the concept of the peasants marching up the hill with pitchforks. One does not prevail against evil by being evil. One prevails against evil by doing and speaking good.
What is the real financial health of our companies? Do we have to “fudge it” when making presentations? Must we conduct accounting legerdermain to hide the fact that we are actually bleeding and that the company is dying, even if it takes thirty years to die? Do we tell each other stories about Enron, Lehman Brothers and Evergrande so that we can come up with better ways of getting away with fraud? Whorehouses and casinos will continue to make money. That is because most men refuse to change their ways and will find any and all means of camouflage so that they will continue in them. Perhaps that is why persiflage and bloviation abound.
So, do we want to put a stop, at least for a good breathing space, to Operation Whorehouse? Then start being great at what you are actually supposed to be doing, whatever your post happens to be. If you can’t see how to do that, then find some other work to do. Get out of debt, for a start. That helps you to be extremely mobile and, in fact, desirable to many people looking for good working partners. Ditch the thought that you’ll always be an employee. Success is much more than making lots of money. You know that already, of course. Do you want to live it, live free? Then stop being a whore. Contact me if you want to know how. You’re welcome!
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