Change the score board!!

In the United States, and it would appear, most of the world, the only way anyone keeps score is, “Who has the most money?”, “Came in first?”, or “Has the most clout?”

There is no grading on a curve, no points for second (My understanding is a race driver from a few years back, Michael Andretti, said that, "Second place is just first loser." I don’t know if that is original from him or if it actually came from someone else first.)
Because of this, the mind set for all business in our country, if not the world is, get the most market share. Make the most money. Sell more products no matter what.

I knew that “add on” product sales were encouraged in retail sales of all kinds. Add one or two items to every sale and make $xx more dollars over xx amount of time! Always try to find a way to get a little more money than the customer planned on spending. If the customer seems reluctant and still has reservations about the “add on” item, talk them into it anyway!

What blew me away was when I saw this same practice in a medical situation! No matter where you are, or what you are doing, someone is going to try to get a few more of your hard earned dollars. Whether you need the product they are selling or not, whether you can afford it or not, they are going to try to talk you out of some of your hard earned dollars so that their corporation can get a little more money to pay CEOs and stock holders,and sometimes, even the employees.

If all we are doing is looking at that narrow spectrum, then that is where the focus will be. And unfortunately, there a too many who will have no scruples when it comes to how they get that little bit more.

Now I don’t claim to know what the answer is yet but hope someone can come up with one.

We need a new score keeping system.

Instead of just looking at the bottom line for corporations, how much a business makes, what the net worth of Joe So and So is, we need to find a more meaningful method of keeping score.

Somehow we need to develop a composite scoring system that takes into account ethics, community responsibility, and environmental responsibility, sure we should still keep profitability as part of the mix, and include some form of indicating how good a company is to work for or an individual is to work with.

With our current system of measuring “success” we tend to develop a one dimensional, shallow society that makes too little effort to be good neighbors and friends and too much effort to make more money.

Our nation was founded by men and women who believed in capitalism and making a living. But if that had been their only motivation, do you think that they would have taken the chances they did?

To them honor and freedom also mattered. They were willing to risk all for those and other dreams and hopes.

Today, in our nation, too often it seems that all that matters is making a profit… NOW!!!

Let’s change the way we keep score and see what that does for our image in the world and at home.