30 Business “No No’s” (1)
- Do
not Destroy the Competition
Don't walk on the poor
just because they're poor, and don't use your position to crush the weak (in
the market place), because God will
come to their defense; the life you took, he'll take from you and give back to
them.[1] Solomon
Don’t walk over the poor just because they are poor.
In the early years of our country the colonies
were very poor and having just fought the French and Indian war the need for
extra funds was expressed from the mother country of England. Our forefathers did not like the idea of
being taxed as you may well know. They
felt as though they were being walk on and taken advantage of. The English felt they had the right to tax
the colonies because these were cities nurtured under the wings of
England. However, our forefathers felt
now sense of obligation to pay when being taxed without representation. Since most of the colonist fled from England
for religious reasons there was no sense of duty to a country that had cast
them out as criminals.
During this time a
man named Ben Franklin began using a symbol of a snake in his writings to try
to create a more unified group of colonies.
He believed a rattle snake was the best image of the colonies. When the revolutionary war broke an anonymous
writer who called himself, “The American Guesser” wrote to the Pennsylvania
Journal that he had observed some marines of the Navy flying a flag with a
rattlesnake on it. He then went on to
describe why he guessed that the rattlesnake would be a good symbol for the
American colonies against the English.
First, it occurred to
him that "the Rattle-Snake is found in no other quarter of the world
besides America."
The rattlesnake also
has sharp eyes, and "may therefore be esteemed an emblem of
vigilance." Furthermore,
"She never
begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an
emblem of magnanimity and true courage. ... she never wounds 'till she has
generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the
danger of treading on her."
Finally, "I
confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles, 'till I went back
and counted them and found them just thirteen, exactly the number of the
Colonies united in America; and I recollected too that this was the only part
of the Snake which increased in numbers. ...
"'Tis curious
and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles
of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to
be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly, is
incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together, is
sufficient to alarm the boldest man living." [2]
The flag that was raised was yellow and
had a coiled snake in the middle and on the bottom it read, “Don’t tread on me.”
England tried to
oppress the poor colonies of these United States and they received a
supernatural defeat in the Revolutionary War.
In business we must make it our duty to treat others justly and with
integrity in the marketplace. We should
never use our position or influence to harm or take advantage of another. The temptation in today’s business culture to
make quick money and use people is prevalent.
It is a “no no” to walk over
people to achieve success.
Don’t use your position to crush the
weak.
The original language
of scripture uses the words “rob and destroy.”
The idea is that a person in the marketplace with power and influence
would use their position to destroy and rob from those that were not as
influential. Their actions would not
merely put another person out of business but would essentially take their
clients and their lively hood away. It
would crush them and the competition for their products would be diminished. This
in turn creates a situation where one company controls the price of a
product.
An example of this is
what Amazon is doing to its publishers. I
have quoted from an recent bloggingstock article.
In the last few days, bookselling giant Amazon.com Inc
(NASDAQ: AMZN)
has made a few more enemies in the publishing world by forcing the little-known
group of print-on-demand (POD) publishers to either submit to using
its POD subsidiary, Booksurge, or risk being prohibited from selling on its
industry-leading website. No matter the cost and complications of breaking off
relationships with other vendors, reformatting books and a host of other
problems, Amazon laid down the law, saying convert -- and do it quickly -- or
face the consequences. [4]
These kinds of
practices are a business “No No”. For
business to work there must be competition.
Competition is good because it secures for the customer the lowest price
for a product.
Why
should any business care about ensuring competition in the work place? Why should we be concerned with who gets walked
on when we are doing business? Every
business has a Boss. Our boss, our
master is the Lord. Whatever we do is to
be done for the Lord. We are to work and
do business as though we doing it for our Lord.
He is our judge and the defender of those who are poor and weak that we
have greater influence over. We exist to
honor him in how we do business.
(CEO) Masters … You and your servants are both under the
same Master in heaven. He makes no distinction between you and them.[5]
Round table:
How do you balance making a profit with
being a good competitor? What services do you offer that larger companies cannot?
Have you ever felt like you didn’t have any choice in the service that you
wanted? What did you do? How prevalent is the “dog eats dog” mentality
in business? Why is competition good for
the marketplace?
[1]
The Message, Proverbs 22:22-23
February 26,
2009; 12:05 PM
[4]
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/04/02/amazon-bullying-raises-monopoly-and-business-concerns
February 26, 2009; 11:45 AM
[5]
MSG Ephesians 6:9
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