Don't let Patience turn into Bitterness
The subheading to this article could read:
"How the little guy gets squashed by the establishment"
You might say: "So what's new. We know that that happens
all the time." - And you are probably right.
Let's start at the beginning: This morning I was sitting at
the breakfast table reading the newspaper when I ran across
an AP-article about an accountant in a small town bank. The
story said that he is a teacher of accounting now, and that
he uses his own story to teach his students.
Don't you sometimes hope the little guy wins?
Are you sometimes frustrated that the establishment, being
it the city administration or government, a corporation, or
a large organization seems to get away with things you, as
a private person, never would?
Not all battles are the same, and not all of them are worth
fighting. In one of our communities here a single student
wrote a letter to his school demanding that the paintings
and sculptures of a warrior Indian be removed form campus.
He feels they are offensive and portrait Indians as
war-mongering. The school board recently decided to keep
the name "Warrior" but remove all signs of the Indian head
from everywhere, including letter head, athletic gear,
everything. After 80 years of tradition and pride to be a
Warrior, one student's letter is enough to get the whole
community up in arms. In my view it's a huge waste of
energy and time.
I myself am involved in a fight on a smaller scale. As a
former employee of a company that went bankrupt, a group of
my friends and I are still hoping to get some of the
compensation the company owes us. We have been waiting and
fighting for 3 years now.
Then there are the other fights, like the one I read about
in the paper, of the teacher named Dave Welch. In that case
I really hope the little guy wins. Here is what happened.
During times of massive corporate scandals at Enron,
WorldCom, Tyco, etc. Mr Welch refused to sign the financial
statement of the bank he was working for. As the accountant
he has to attest with his signature that all the numbers
are correct. He suspected that things weren't all clean,
and so he didn't sign.
The federal government, in the form of the US Congress, had
passed a law to protect whistle blowers, like Mr. Welch,
from repression in case they found or suspected something
was wrong. The article I read in the paper this morning
speaks about the fact that the protection as originally
intended doesn't really seem to exist. Of a total of 1091
cases, the little guys only got a favorable ruling 17
times; that's less than 2% - some protection, if you ask me.
As you can imagine, after being fired from his bank for not
signing the financial statements, Mr. Welch didn't find
work in his little town. Even when he applied further away
the fact that he was a whistleblower has been seen as a
risk for employers. He had to sell his farm, lost all his
savings, and now is a teacher instead of an accountant. He
did the right thing under the law. He spoke up when he
suspected wrong doing, but nobody is willing to enforce
this law. The courts have ordered the bank 4 times so far
to pay Mr. Welch his back pay and rehire him, at least
temporary, or give him a severance package.
Each time the bank refused and appealed the decisions. This
case is probably dragging on for years to come.
Does that mean I advocate to keep your mouths shut and
overlook blatant mistakes or fraudulent behaviors? No, not
at all. What I think anybody in this kind of a situation
needs to be aware is this: Don't expect any help because
the laws passed in the last 8 years are predominantly in
favor of business. Even in cases where they appear to
protect the employee, they get interpreted by government
administrators in ways that avoid consequences.
If we are lucky, we might get better government after the
next presidential elections. Even if that happens, it will
take years to correct the many problems that have come from
an overly pro-business atmosphere.
I am a business and leadership coach and consultant. I
depend on clients form this niche. Still, I believe we need
to recognize our core values and apply the rules and laws
equally for all. A bank can increase it's legal budge from
$100.000 per year to $400.000 per year to fight a little
guy like Mr. Welch. Good leadership and working with a good
coach and consultant would mean to find a way to solve the
issue, review the data, admit wrong ding, if that is
warranted, and safe the legal fees. With the legal fees the
bank spend the last 5 years they could have helped a lot of
their customers and create new larger profits.
I believe there is a great lesson to be learned from this
story: When you know you are right and you are patient
enough to look, you will find others who agree and will
take a chance on you. Here is how the story ends:
Mr. Welch applied for a job as a teacher at Franklin
University in Ohio. The article reads: "At the end of the
interview Mr. Welch was shown into the office of Paul Otto,
the schools president at the time.
Mr. Otto is a blunt-spoken long-ago Marine who sits on two
corporate boards. He'd heard about Mr. Welch. The case, Mr.
Otto said, reminded him of an article he'd written a few
months before the interview, on the need to challenge
corporate authority.
He invited Mr. Welch to take a seat across a coffee table
in a desk-less office. "Let me ask you," Mr. Otto said,
"did you refuse to certify the banks financial statements
or did you sign them and then blow the whistle?"
"I refused to sign," Mr. Welch said, unsure which was the
right answer. It was good enough for Mr. Otto, whose
article preaches this message:
"The greatest failures resulting from unchallenged
authority have occurred when people reporting directly to
the CEO lacked the courage to challenge their boss."
Mr. Welch got the job."
As mentioned at the beginning, he could have gotten
frustrated and bitter with the justice system, the labor
department, the community that expelled him, although he
didn't do anything wrong.
Good thing he didn't. He is still patiently hoping that the
intent of the law will ultimately give him the back-pay the
courts have ordered the bank to pay several times by now.
More importantly, he is using his story to encourage other
future accountants to be vigilant and stand up for what is
right.
Having strong confidence, the willingness to stand up for
what is right, and be firm in your convictions isn't just a
lesson for a little guy, an employee or a lower level
manager, but for executives and leaders among all of us.
And just because things might not go our way immediately
doesn't mean we should give up. I hope very few people have
to give up their farm, their job, their community, and
their friends, to fight for what is right.
Mr. Welch's story inspires me to keep going and not turning
bitter. I hope anybody being involved in similar situations
will see that being strong, full of positive energy and
patience is the source of the power it takes to persevere.
----------------------------------------------------
Axel Meierhoefer is an experienced performance coach,
author, educator, consultant, and the founder of Axel
Meierhoefer Consulting LLC (AMC LLC). His motto is" Helping
others help themselves achieve success". If you like to get
on his VIP E-mail list to receive more articles, or if you
like to receive his FREE special report, go to
http://www.meierhoefer.net/special or email
AM@Meierhoefer.net
