Honey, get the kids: we’re moving to Canada.
OK, not really, but OMG, some of the decisions we’re making are truly remarkable… and I don’t mean in a good way.
CIT, a small business lender, has tapped John Thain, Mr. “Let’s do a $1 million plus office renovation before selling his company in a fire sale to Bank of America and then requesting a $10 million bonus for himself,” to be its fearless leader and turnaround guy.
Someone at CIT, look me in the eye, and tell me you’re kidding.
Does Thain have the technical skills to do the job? Yes, absolutely, he has those in spades. Are those all that matter? Before answering, chew on this:
In addition to his technical know-how, Thain also has some other things, too, including a demonstrated willingness to abuse the privilege of personal power at the highest levels, at the worst of times.
Now, earlier this week I rallied against the criminalization of failure, and how when society becomes consumed with failure, the people who rise to the “top” aren’t the true leaders but the guys most adept at spinning failure to sound like success. And here we have CIT, exhibit A, turning a blind eye to principle in their pursuit of short term earnings, engaging in a process that is inherently short on integrity and that—even if the company itself succeeds in the near term—will impede their long term growth capacity. Worse, this move will have a negative impact on the industry and economy.
Again.
Having Thain work again is fine—give him a second chance. But trumpeting him as if he’s a knight in shining armor when we already know his armor is tarnished is a crock of monkey flingers. Thain’s example teaches that abuses of power will be rewarded, or at least overlooked. Which erodes companies’ ability to hire principled talent. (Principles are hard to live by; if I don’t need them, why bother?) And a lack of talent ultimately undermines our ability to generate results. Not just at CIT, but across a broad swath of the economy.
We are not just mortgaging our future for the sake of short-term results here, we are potentially gutting it.
Now, back to the question: are technical skills all that matter? Hang on, don’t answer quite yet.
Let’s assume the answer is yes. Which it isn’t, but let’s pretend. OK. We’ve decided that there’s no space in capitalism for principles like justice or trust. Fine, take them out.
And while we’re at it, let’s remove them from marriage, schools, government—any institution you can think of. Because principles aren’t a “sometimes” thing. They’re an “always” thing. Remove them from one place, and you have to remove them from everywhere.
Now, let’s look at what we’ve got, shall we? Or better yet, let’s cut to the chase and state the obvious: any institution, robbed of principle, falls apart. We know this.
And we need to stop pretending.
CIT, principles matter. By pretending they don’t, you’re making a deal with the devil to put numbers on the board.
This devil will collect, and what he’ll take, we can’t afford to lose.
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
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Spot-on post, Jason. This mess is the fault of the Board of Directors. Talk about Fail Spectacularly – Thain and the CIT Board exemplify it.
A friend’s dad worked for years as a high-level consultant to CEOs. When I asked him if I was nuts thinking that all too often CEO is just a title that admits people to an exclusive club where they get hired at that level again and again regardless of performance, he grinned and said, “Yes, a CEO might get fired but they never lose their title.”