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Lessons in Leadership It's the political season (still) Keeping the free enterprise system free By Robert L. Bailey It’s not especially comforting to many of us to be inundated with intense political campaign punches, pokes and jabs for nearly two years before the next major election. The pursuit of political jobs is passionate; and it seems that the political “season” never ends. While many of us may turn off our TV sets rather than endure so many months of political charges and countercharges, the never-ending campaigns do emphasize government’s huge role in our personal and business lives and the need to become more involved in the legislative process. You may have noted that the political establishment seldom encourages and rewards business success. Instead, the most successful companies (that generally became successful because they provided great products and overwhelming service to their customers) are often threatened with burdensome regulations and oppressive legislation while less successful companies seem to fly under the radar. In my corporate days, I often testified before a state legislative committee, and in a few instances before a federal legislative committee, for our company or for the insurance industry. Time after time I noted that the spokesperson for the large, successful company or organization with thousands of employees would be hammered with critical questions and comments while a smaller organization, with say 50 employees, would be defended and protected by legislators. They didn’t mind associating themselves with a small, struggling business but never with a large, successful one. Apparently it’s fun to pick on the big guy. Yes, it’s tough being a leader. It’s even tougher being successful. With that success comes an obligation to build a positive legislative environment in which our industry can operate effectively. Great insurance companies and insurance agencies can compete with the best of competitors. But even great companies and agencies cannot operate effectively in a hostile legislative environment. Remember the so-called 1990 luxury tax on boats priced over $100,000? It seems that rich people needed boats a lot less than the employees who build boats needed jobs. They stopped buying, and dozens of boat companies went out of business. History is filled with similar examples. Taxes were imposed on glass in England in 1745. So glass manufacturers moved to Ireland. In 1796 a new tax was levied on windows, and that tax increased 10 times over the next 50 years. Why? Because windows in houses were symbols of the rich. So people started bricking up all but one or two windows in their homes. The glass tax was repealed in 1845. There are rent controls in some 150 cities in our country, creating jungles ruled by slum lords—people who won’t fix broken windows or hot water heaters to encourage tenants to move so that they can increase rents for new tenants. Most of us have experienced first-hand the many price freezes and rate rollbacks in our industry, which have been dictated by legislators, while underlying costs for auto and home repairs, medical bills, lawsuits and legal bills kept rising. In one state, to obtain a permit to open a business requires many months and thousands of dollars while dealing with 72 different government agencies. There are literally thousands of such situations in America. Most business people I talk to have become cynical about our nation’s politicians, and for good reason. Yet our system of government is the best in the world, so we have to make it work better. And we can have influence. Several years ago we learned at the last minute that the House of Representatives in one of our major states of operation had voted to roll back auto insurance rates and to freeze them at the lower level for five years. That same bill was to be voted on by the state Senate that very day. Passage of that bill would have devastated the auto insurance market in that state. Our company for one would no longer have been able to provide a market for auto insurance there. We spent the day on the phone. Our people called every agent. We asked each one to call his or her state senator, and we outlined the message to deliver. I spent most of the day calling our competitors asking that they, too, call their agents. Many said, “There’s nothing we can do,” but others did make calls—and the bill was defeated in the Senate by one vote. If a legislator receives 50 letters on a given issue that appear to be spontaneous and not an organized effort of a special interest group, he or she believes there is a groundswell of public opinion. We can have an impact on unfavorable legislation. A number of years ago my wife, Sylvia, and I had an opportunity to travel to China where I wrote down the guiding principles of the Chinese Communist Party: 1. Sufficient food I don’t know how they define sufficient, adequate, secure and decent, but it was obvious that they don’t mean what you and I think they mean in this country. No doubt about it, we live in the finest country in the world. And although leaders of some foreign governments tell us that they don’t like us (remember, people take pot shots at the big and successful), we have found that the American dream is alive and well in every country we have ever visited. Everyone wants to live here and work here. Business leaders must become more involved with government. First, we must take a more active role in the election of our political leaders. Perhaps we need not be overly attentive to the slogans and sound bites of every want-to-be politician 12 to 18 months before an election. But six months or so before an election, we must carefully evaluate the candidates and select those who believe in and support the free enterprise system and who will foster an environment in which our businesses can prosper. We must get personally acquainted with our legislators on a state and federal basis. When they don’t support our views, we have to let them know. If they don’t listen, we have to select different ones at re-election time who will support free enterprise. Great leaders often go unheard in this society because they are working 70 or 80 hours a week to meet payroll and make their businesses successful. They don’t have time to posture for the TV camera (and it’s not their nature to do it anyway). They just keep their heads down, work their tails off, and pay their taxes while the politicians bash them and their businesses. We cannot permit this to occur. We have a job to do. We can’t rely on our trade associations and chambers of commerce to do it for us. We have to do it. It’s a vital role of a leader. * The author |
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