What have you learned about business? Why is business important?

Business is just about organization and communication.  Business is an organic process that happens naturally in life.  It can’t be avoided.  If business wasn’t business, we would still have business.  Business is only the word, not the idea.

It is important because it is apart of life.  Nothing else can be said.  Every aspect of life is essential and business is no exception.

Business is complicated, constantly evolving, and dynamic.  No one will be able to master business, but I’m sure many can properly tame it.

Well, we all know there are quite a few morons in business. We see that a lot in our daily news. I can’t believe Mr. Madoff getting away with BILLIONS in a ponzi scheme. I can’t get over the AIG execs actually feeling justified in getting their bonuses after they totally bombed, and expect to get their moola from the taxpayers pockets. Are they serious?

How can you live with yourself? Knowing you’ve screwed over little old ladies and families who really need the cash! How can you actually take their money and feel that it is absolutely okay to do so? I don’t think I’ll ever get over stealing that comic book from Chilly Willy’s convenience store in 1980. It was the ‘Teen Titans”. Loved them, though I don’t think I took any pleasure in reading that particular comic.

And people are actually arguing about this. Not my comic-stealing episode, but whether these yahoos should still get their bonuses. As they do have a contract, we may feel contractually obligated to pay them — but are you kidding me? They’ve been allowed to screw over the system without impunity?

Frankly, I find it disgusting. Maybe I’m too honest.

Is ‘business ethics’ an oxymoron? Do business ethics need to improve? If so, how?

Improvement is necessary for anything.  If I say I’m perfect, am I really?  No, of course not.  I’m lying to you.  Maybe not intentionally, but I am.  So do business ethics need to improve?  Of course they do.

We live in a world that pursues what is right and just, but how hard do we try to actually achieve this.  I look around and see companies handing out ridiculous amounts of money to CEO’s who supposedely deservc it.  Do they?  I don’t know.  Probably not.  Especially when you look at the state of the economy and figure, hmmm, tons of people are getting laid off, and yet the “important” people are rewarded.  It doesn’t make sense to put oneself above the needs of others.  Maybe this is just an ethical issue and not so much a business one, but I think we need look out for our partners, distributors, enemies, allies, and friends.  The more and more people get away with cheating the system, the faster the system will crumble.

But how do you get everyone to follow the rules?  It’s highly unlikely, I would argue.  With the difference in opinions, ideas, and beliefs in the world, finding one path to align all seems tricky.  But, we are a world full of individuals, and no matter how collectivist or individualist you are, you will first and foremost be an individual.  Each person needs to decide for themselves which path to take, and unfortunatley, this should not be forced.  As people, it seems that that only time we change is when something crappy happens first.

Lets just hope that future generations learn from and faster than those of the past.

And by the way, whose to say whose ethics are right and wrong?