The Right Balance of Greed

The issue with greed only comes with and excess of greed. The corporate crooks splashed across the front pages are the extreme worst of business owners and management. The scammers and cheaters lurking the net for unsuspecting dreamers are the bottom feeders of society, but they have always been around (snake oil salesmen?). The greed present in these situations developed slowly, compromising small piece of morality at a time until taking advantage of somebody and everybody appeared normal.

Over the last few years, they have all been bombarded with images of the chaos caused by greed. With the destruction of the American economy, the outrageous unemployment rate, and the ridiculous number of working American drowning in debt, the poison of greed is a hot topic these days. Nobody wishes to think about themselves greedy, when all of us know somebody struggling with no job and an impossible mortgage and debt payments. But is greed always a bad thing?

Greed, at these extreme levels, encourages bad risk. You can see it in individuals who fall for get-rich-quick schemes, grant scams, and even reply to those Nigerian banking swindles. You can clearly see it in the management of the immense banks, in the ridiculous fees and outrageous interest charges. And, worse, you can see it in the Wall Street swaps of bad debt and doomed mortgages.

But not all greed is bad. In fact, some level of greed is necessary for progress. A healthy amount of greed encourages innovation and calculated risk. Innovation, or figuring out a better way to do things, is seldom motivated by anything but a small bit of greed. Entrepreneurship is all about finding a better way to serve customers or solve an issue, and only a few entrepreneurs are not in it, at least in part, for the funds. Controlling risk is an essential factor in entrepreneurial success as well, so the motivation to do the home-work before launching a new business is also fundamentally as well as a small bit of greed.

Some greed is necessary. The turnaround of the US economy will be on the backs of small business owners. It is that small little bit of greed that will encourage you to launch a new business, hire employees, expand to multiple locations, and get some funds circulating again. The trick, of work, is to select when is and to draw a clear ethical line in everything you do. keep in mind, that small part of you that wishes to live without funds worries and have your name by yourself business cards is the lovely kind of greed...and the only thing that is going to turn this economy around!