In one of the most popular scenes from contemporary film, Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, is on the phone with football player Rod Tidwell, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr., begging to remain Tidwell's agent. Tidwell tells Maguire that he'll keep him on, but then says, "That's what I'm gonna do for you: God bless you, Jerry. But this is what you gonna do for me." Tidwell then insists Maguire repeat after him, "Show me the money." Maguire's first several attempts to please his client are half-hearted and feeble, but Tidwell continues to egg and cheer his agent on until Maguire is screaming into the phone, "Show me the money!" at the top of his lungs. Here's the clip; take a look and listen.
No doubt a few of you have gleefully used that line a time or two as I have, but right now I'm not finding it very funny. This entertaining and silly scene seems an apt portrayal of what's happening at AIG and in many of our other financial institutions and major corporations. It's all about the money, even though the money happens to have come from someone else's pockets. And when it becomes all about the money, people lose sight of other important values—little things like fairness, justice, personal responsibility, and the welfare of their fellow citizens.
Stanford Professor, Jeff Pfeffer, one of the best business professors in the country and perhaps the most grounded in hard research on soft subjects, recently wrote a brilliant commentary on the AIG mess in Washington Post's On Leadership online blog. In it he cited research by Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota, reporting that "In a large number of experiments, Vohs and her colleagues show that participants primed with the idea of money—for instance, by seeing a dollar bill on a screen saver or constructing sentences with money-related concepts as one of the words—are less likely to ask for help with a task, less likely to offer help to others, and to sit farther away from compatriots in the study. Money, simply put, makes people behave more independently and, of course, engages their competitive spirit. Meanwhile, numerous others studies show that people with economics training are more likely to defect in prisoner's dilemma games, to take more resources for themselves, in ultimatum games, to give less to charity—you get the picture."
What we learn from Pfeffer and Vohs is that by focusing on money we become blind to other important considerations. We are less likely to want to be part of a team, less likely to collaborate, less likely to help others, and less likely to be good to our neighbors. This may make for more intense and entertaining sports competitions—yes, show him the money, Jerry—but when it comes to restoring our economy, getting people back into their homes, putting people back to work, and restoring consumer confidence it's exactly the wrong thing to do.
While in the short run it may be necessary, and we
may be able, to do something to bail out financial institutions and auto
companies, there won't be any long-term fixes to the more pervasive and
pernicious threat a "show me the money" culture presents to our way of life until we engage in a serious reexamination of the values that are promoted and
reinforced in business schools, consulting groups, Wall Street firms,
professional sports, and entertainment media. And while we're at it, let's also reflect on the values we stress at home with our kids. As long as "show me the
money" is the mantra of the day, we'll be reading about a lot more AIG-like
scandals in the future.
Posted by Jim Kouzes