Today’s guest post is written by Pamela Wright.I want to issue a sincere apology from the Baby Boomer generation to the younger generations.
We have failed you profoundly.
With a quick look at headlines, no one can escape the conclusion that some of you were raised without an ethical foundation.
Had we done our job, we would have taught you the following lessons, and they would have better prepared you for the world today.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
The story: A young boy is tending a flock of sheep and becomes bored. He runs into the village yelling that a wolf is loose among the flock. The villagers grab rakes, hoes and clubs to beat off the wolf only to find that there is no wolf. The boy decides this is great fun. The next day just as he is about to get bored, a real wolf appears. The boy begins screaming “Wolf” but the villagers ignore him as they believe it is another prank. The boy gets eaten by the wolf.
Moral to the story: Lose the prototype iPhone in a bar a second time and everyone will believe that it is a PR stunt.
All Baby Boomers grew up with the movie Bambi and fell in love with the character Thumper
The story: Bambi’s parents are introducing him to the forest creatures. Thumper comments that Bambi is “kind of wobbly” to which Thumper’s mother creates the Thumperian principle by responding, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
Moral to the story: Hire an expensive PR agency, pay them enough that they forget their ethics and start fabricating bad rumors about your competition, and see what how long it takes for the word to get out. Facebook and Burson-Marsteller attempted this one only to have to fall on their sword.
A favorite story, the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg
The story: A farmer and his wife discovered that their goose laid a golden egg every morning. They would take the egg to the market and trade it for food and clothes. One day, they talked it over and decided that if the goose could lay a golden egg every morning, it must be full of gold. They proceeded to kill the goose only to find there wasn’t any gold inside.
Moral to the story: Even though you have one of the very few Geese that lay Golden Eggs, you can’t kill your Golden Goose by choosing to ignore the SEC and continuing on your merry way. We’re talking to you, Groupon.
Do you have any morals to add?
I would like to sincerely thank Danny Brown for allowing me to hitchhike on his ebook, Parables of Business, to write this post. Obviously Danny’s parents went against the crowd.
Pamela Wright and her company, FocusedWords, are dedicated to helping promote and market RV Parks/Resorts/Campgrounds to RVer’s everywhere. If you haven’t been to an RV resort lately, you need to check it out!