TGIF – Honest People Steal A Lot More Than Crooks

As the week winds down, we wind down with some tidbits for your information, education, health, and enjoyment.

Quote of the Week: “It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”  John Steinbeck  

Humor Break:

Bev: Al, do you think it pays to be honest?

Al: Doesn’t seem to pay enough for some people.

Stat of the Week: Six months ago I reviewed Dan Ariely’s book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves.  It was in a post I called You Cheat – Honest! .  Well this week I was rereading some of his work from an earlier book (Predictably Irrational) and I came across this chapter: “Why We Are Dishonest, and What We Can Do about It.”  Here are some the Stats that he quotes that really bother me.  I hope they bother you too.  In 2004 the total costs of all robberies in the United States was $525 million.  That’s bad, but not too bad … unless of course you were one of the victims.  What is really bad is that employee theft and fraud in the workplace is estimated at $600 billion each year.  That is billion with a “B”.  And guess who the ultimate victims are … yep!, we all end up paying for others’ indiscretions.  As Ariely aptly puts it, one year of office monkey business exceeds all that all the criminals in the word could steal in a lifetime. As long as I am throwing around his Stats, here are two more involving everyone but you and me: taxpayers short the US government $350 billion (again with a “B”) a year; and finally, bogus insurance claims come in at about $24 billion a year.  Gulp, those career criminals are pretty small fish when compared to us honest folks.

Action Tip: The experiements that Aiely conducted to test our honesty were extensive, clever, cute and persuasive.  I especially like the experiments with giving away free money.  If you haven’t read either The Honest Truth or Predictably Irrational, I strongly recommend you put one or both on your reading list.

Self-Development Corner: This week on Coursera you can improve your writing skills Writing II: Rhetorical Composing (April 22, 6 weeks, Ohio State University), learn to play a guitar Introduction to Guitar (April 22, 6 weeks, Berklee College of Music), or be a concerned citizen Community Change in Public Health (April 22, 6 weeks, Johns Hopkins).

This week national news agencies reported in the next step forward to bringing MOOCs on to the college campus. Here is a summary from the Wall Street Journal: “Kaplan University has been selected to participate in a national pilot program that will examine the potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs), including how these courses could be integrated into traditional degree completion programs.

Funded through an American Council on Education (ACE) grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the University Professional & Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) pilot program will help determine how students succeed at higher education institutions after having received credit for a MOOC.”

Happy learning.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.