Do you have a very intelligent friend who makes poor decisions? Talented, smart, good looking - but - they are always in emergency mode.

I finally sat down and actually took time to analyze this and have some parallels to recruiting and career moves.

I now realize it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall started with ONE, usually deliberate/quasi unethical, bad decision. The rest falls from there. Ok, note, I am not UNguilty of ever making a bad decision, nor am I proud of every decision I have made in my life. I do think that I try to learn from bad decisions and usually have the discipline to not repeat them.

Here I am talking to a friend and helping him think through some decisions he has to make. It seems that there are no good options but some just less painful than others. Why? I will tell you why. Either his moral compass is so skewed that the decision he made 3 years ago seemed legitimate to him, or he thought he could get away with making a bad decision. He, as many criminals do (not that he is a criminal), all think they are smarter than the system. Rules aren't for them....especially if they are not written in stone...a.k.a. ethics. For millenia, companies and organizations have tried to write down what ethics are but so much of ethics falls in a gray area, for one person as opposed to another, that there is always a "work around".

The problem for my friend is that he gets away with many things but even if he gets caught in one out of 10, it is still quite painful. What he doesn't get is that even if it is painful, it is best to do the right thing to the best of your knowledge. ONE bad decision usually (ok, without fail) leads to the necessity to make another bad decision, which breeds 2 more bad decisions, which breeds 5 more bad decisions, etc..... The issue is that my friend fails to see the long term consequences of his actions. He wants instant problem fixes and gratification TODAY.

He is now so consumed with poor options that it has totally changed the quality if his life. That quality of life called PEACE. By the way, most of his bad decisions (90%) have to do with money.

I guess the moral of the story is always try to do the right things. This sounds so simple but more people are trying to short circuit life.....instead of living it.

As for recruiting, so many of my candidates chip away at their reputations so that 10 years later, all of those chips are felt in the foundation of their career. They left contracts unfinished, because they were only looking out for Numero Uno. They left jobs without proper notice and left their managers in a bind. They played politics and back stabbed their fellow workers up the corporate ladder.

Guess what? Now they are interviewing for their dream job. Interviews have gone GREAT. It is in the bag, pending reference checks. - GULP! - Yeah. The trail of bad feelings you left behind for the last 10 years just bit you in the ass.

Go back to your cubicle and get to work.

- David