I was just reading Engagement is Not Enough by Keith Ayers and he was making a point that when organizations put their values above everything else, that profits tend to follow. However, when organizations put profit above everything else, values do not necessarily follow.

I have long held the belief that the more a person’s personal values are aligned with the organization for which they work, the higher their job satisfaction and the more engaged they are in the work. When a person’s values are compromised for the gain of money, we get what we now have in our economy. There were a ton of people who found ways around the system to make more money and massaged the system to make more money and stood on the backs of others to make more money. Ultimately when the sand started to shift at the bottom, the top also fell, taking the rest of us with it.

Last weekend my husband and I went to a local barn that an individual had built so that local amateur musicians could come every Saturday night and play music for people to listen, dance, and share fellowship in a clean atmosphere. It was an intergenerational group with grandfathers and granddaughters dancing, teenagers, oldsters, and everyone having a good time. This has been going on for 20 years or more, but it was the last night because some personal items had been stolen and the owner was shutting it down.

I hope that as we rebuild our organizations to the finest America can offer that we rebuild them according to the values that made our country great–hard work, honesty, integrity, and a concern for our fellow man. After all, we are all in this together.