Just doing what you’re told to do…

Another week, another round of firings at Clear Channel.

It won’t be the last, unfortunately.

I didn’t notice…

did any of the guys at the very top of the food chain at CC have their pay cut? Did Bob Pittman have to give up that private jet deal he has with Bain?

Ohhhh, that’s right. Clear Channel needs those guys.

They can’t grow without those guys, those guys who make their money by having you, Mr. Local Market GM, do their dirty work.

Seth Godin’s words come to mind: “Our organizations are filled with people not only eager to dehumanize those that they serve, but apparently, instructed to do so. In the name of shareholder value or team play or not rocking the boat.”

Oh, you say, I don’t serve my local staff — they serve me.

So how’s that working out for you? How’s that working out for your self-respect, your sense of moral courage and ethics?

You’re just following orders, right? Just doing what you’re told to do. If you don’t do it, they’ll fire you too, and someone else will come in and do it.

And that brings to mind these words, spoken in a different cause, a different time…

“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.” *

*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.