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A Lot of Politicians Should Read My Favorite Book (Mayor Miller included)

Listener: Dick H.
Category: Lubbock City Politics
Date: 18 Mar 2008
Time: 14:59:52 -0700
Remote Name: 70.238.211.114

Comments

I have a favorite book titled, "The Power of Ethical Management" and was written by Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent :Peale. This a fairly short book that touts the benefits of ethical management in business but is equally applicable to government management.

Our good Mayor Miller passed out books to the members of the City Council on how to manage organizations. "The Power of Ethical Management" does not get into detailed management techniques but makes excellent points about how to run an organization in a truthful and ethical manner. It would be a good ideal for our Mayor and City Council to read this book because the book makes some great points about the advantage of running a business in an ethical and fair manner.

My favorite quote from this book is, "There is no right way to do a wrong thing". For example you should not tell a lie that you are not going to raise taxes in order to get elected and then proceed to legislate projects that will raise taxes. Be straight-forward and honest with taxpayers. Taxpayers do not be lied to in order to get them to pay for projects that are really needed but it may take many lies to get them to support an unneeded project. If the project is not needed then 10,000 lies will not justify wasting taxpayer money on the project.

Another quotation that I really like is "People with humility don't think less of themselves, they just think about themselves less". A politician that suggests that somebody will write a book about his or her accomplishments needs a huge dose of humility. A politician that wants to build arenas or opry houses so that the structure can be named after him needs a large dose of humility.

The book gives a short three point ethics check list.
1. Is it legal? Will civil law or company policy be violated. Example- a city council should not have unannounced covert meetings that violate the Texas Open Meetings Laws.
2. Is it balanced? Is it fair to everyone both in the short term and the long term? Example- is it right to saddle the poorest of our taxpayers with taxes for an unnecessary arena or opry house?
3. How will it make me feel about myself? This question does not seem to bother a number of politicians since they only seem to be concerned about their own welfare rather than the welfare of their constituents.

In short I think that reading and heeding this book would be a lot more beneficial than most of the other management books that our Mayor might pass out.


Dick Hudgens
Lubbock