Tony Soprano as a Buddhist?
Some of my readers will recall a television program entitled “The Sopranos” which starred Tony Soprano, his family, other business associates and business competitors. There was also the psychiatrist Tony often went to see. What I remember about Tony was:
He was a business person.
He could be a very loving family man.
He could be ruthless in his treatment of others who did not behave as he needed them to behave – other members of The Family or enemies of the family.
He was head of an illegal organization.
Even though his behavior was abhorrent some of the time I, for one, liked him and would have gladly had him and his family over for Sunday dinner.
This morning I was, no surprise, listening to a Ted Talk while at the gym. The talk I first chose to hear was by Rodrigo Canales and recorded in October 2013. Professor Canales is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. “There, he researches the role of institutions in entrepreneurship and economic development. More specifically, he focuses on how individuals can change organizations and systems – how their backgrounds, professional identities and roles affect how they relate and act in business.” In this Ted Talk to which I was listening he gives a brief overview of the partnership between the business model of the violent drug cartels in Mexico and the consumers of their products. In addition, he briefly talks about the social services which the members of the cartel often provide to the citizens of the community in which they are functioning. He also gives an overview of organizations which grow a fragile product which only grows in certain climatic conditions, harvests it, refines it and gets it to market in a relatively brief time resulting in a profit of close to 60 billion dollars, thus rivaling the profit of Microsoft (2013).
If the mission of an organization is to insure that it produces or brokers a product which is in high demand and gets it to customers quicker and more efficiently than its competitors, and does whatever else is necessary to insure a very good profit the narcos and cartels are to be applauded. Sadly, there is also a lot of collateral damage including the death of those that get in the way of their success and the death of many of those who use the products. In fact, the number of deaths related to these business enterprises rivals that of those killed in the war raging in Syria (I was not able to fact check this statement by Professor Canales).
Obviously to be this successful one has to:
Possess brilliant business skills.
Be able to turn on and off one’s natural human connection to others.
Be willing to see collateral damage as a necessary part of achieving one’s goal.
Be willing to instill a fierce loyalty based on respect, fear or both.
Be seen of willing to take care of family until they quit acting as family should act.
Be attached to direct and indirect power, i. e. power of money.
If, for a moment, we ignore the fact that so-called legitimate business enterprises in the United States do not condone or participate in the direct killing of one’s competitors or others who get in the way (unless one is a military contractor or sub-contractor such as Blackwater), these are the defining characteristics of many successful business enterprises in the United States. To be fair, there are also business enterprises in the United States with very different characteristics. On the whole, however, the goal of many business enterprises in the United States is to make money and using a small fraction of that money to support the arts or charity organizations (often serving those who the particular business enterprises had helped to create the pool of clients the charity serves).
It is the intent of Professor Canales to open our minds to the fact that a simple us-them approach to the narcos, cartels, and consumers has not and will not be effective in lessening or stopping either the trafficking of drugs or the use of them. In other words, Professor Canales is one of the growing list of experts who is challenging us in the United States to acknowledge that the so-called war on drugs is not and will not be effective. This war on drugs assumes an us-them mentality not only for the narcos and the cartels but for those who purchase and use drugs. Sadly, this voice has yet to be heeded by the majority of those with the power and authority to make changes. It is true that, thankfully, there are an increasing number of programs which are alternatives to sending drug addicts to jail/prison. There is evidence that when there are quality treatment options available many of these programs are more successful than prisons/jails. We continue, however, to think of all those involved in the drug trade as the bad men and women and the users of drugs (addicts) as weak and less then and marginally redeemable. The rest of us are the strong, upstanding, productive citizens who accept only “necessary" collateral damage to the workers who cannot get with the program and keep focused on the bottom line.
What is the answer or answers? The answers may lie with the Tony Sopranos whose psychiatrist has connected him to his Buddhist soul – his true self. I mean really, think about it. Here is this brilliant entrepreneur with more talent and skills than many, who is not going to turn his (her) attention to a mission which does not support collateral damage and whose God is not money or power. Tony now uses his organizational and creative skills to find a way to feed many people without destroying the environment and without the need to prove one’s worth by first getting rich and then using that money to help those who lives are a symptom of the collateral damage. Tony new extends his concept of family.
Although some of this writing may be tongue in cheek, I am also very serious. Many times I have worked for/with those individuals who began their entrepreneurial career as drug dealers and users only to later use those same skills to run companies which served other needs and did so in a way which strove to eliminate or at least minimize collateral damage.
There is in many of us – perhaps all of us – a Tony Soprano. There is in every Tony Soprano a potential Buddhist. The question then becomes how are “we” going to work together to create a less destructive stage for our shared journeys.
Written October 13, 2016
Some of my readers will recall a television program entitled “The Sopranos” which starred Tony Soprano, his family, other business associates and business competitors. There was also the psychiatrist Tony often went to see. What I remember about Tony was:
He was a business person.
He could be a very loving family man.
He could be ruthless in his treatment of others who did not behave as he needed them to behave – other members of The Family or enemies of the family.
He was head of an illegal organization.
Even though his behavior was abhorrent some of the time I, for one, liked him and would have gladly had him and his family over for Sunday dinner.
This morning I was, no surprise, listening to a Ted Talk while at the gym. The talk I first chose to hear was by Rodrigo Canales and recorded in October 2013. Professor Canales is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. “There, he researches the role of institutions in entrepreneurship and economic development. More specifically, he focuses on how individuals can change organizations and systems – how their backgrounds, professional identities and roles affect how they relate and act in business.” In this Ted Talk to which I was listening he gives a brief overview of the partnership between the business model of the violent drug cartels in Mexico and the consumers of their products. In addition, he briefly talks about the social services which the members of the cartel often provide to the citizens of the community in which they are functioning. He also gives an overview of organizations which grow a fragile product which only grows in certain climatic conditions, harvests it, refines it and gets it to market in a relatively brief time resulting in a profit of close to 60 billion dollars, thus rivaling the profit of Microsoft (2013).
If the mission of an organization is to insure that it produces or brokers a product which is in high demand and gets it to customers quicker and more efficiently than its competitors, and does whatever else is necessary to insure a very good profit the narcos and cartels are to be applauded. Sadly, there is also a lot of collateral damage including the death of those that get in the way of their success and the death of many of those who use the products. In fact, the number of deaths related to these business enterprises rivals that of those killed in the war raging in Syria (I was not able to fact check this statement by Professor Canales).
Obviously to be this successful one has to:
Possess brilliant business skills.
Be able to turn on and off one’s natural human connection to others.
Be willing to see collateral damage as a necessary part of achieving one’s goal.
Be willing to instill a fierce loyalty based on respect, fear or both.
Be seen of willing to take care of family until they quit acting as family should act.
Be attached to direct and indirect power, i. e. power of money.
If, for a moment, we ignore the fact that so-called legitimate business enterprises in the United States do not condone or participate in the direct killing of one’s competitors or others who get in the way (unless one is a military contractor or sub-contractor such as Blackwater), these are the defining characteristics of many successful business enterprises in the United States. To be fair, there are also business enterprises in the United States with very different characteristics. On the whole, however, the goal of many business enterprises in the United States is to make money and using a small fraction of that money to support the arts or charity organizations (often serving those who the particular business enterprises had helped to create the pool of clients the charity serves).
It is the intent of Professor Canales to open our minds to the fact that a simple us-them approach to the narcos, cartels, and consumers has not and will not be effective in lessening or stopping either the trafficking of drugs or the use of them. In other words, Professor Canales is one of the growing list of experts who is challenging us in the United States to acknowledge that the so-called war on drugs is not and will not be effective. This war on drugs assumes an us-them mentality not only for the narcos and the cartels but for those who purchase and use drugs. Sadly, this voice has yet to be heeded by the majority of those with the power and authority to make changes. It is true that, thankfully, there are an increasing number of programs which are alternatives to sending drug addicts to jail/prison. There is evidence that when there are quality treatment options available many of these programs are more successful than prisons/jails. We continue, however, to think of all those involved in the drug trade as the bad men and women and the users of drugs (addicts) as weak and less then and marginally redeemable. The rest of us are the strong, upstanding, productive citizens who accept only “necessary" collateral damage to the workers who cannot get with the program and keep focused on the bottom line.
What is the answer or answers? The answers may lie with the Tony Sopranos whose psychiatrist has connected him to his Buddhist soul – his true self. I mean really, think about it. Here is this brilliant entrepreneur with more talent and skills than many, who is not going to turn his (her) attention to a mission which does not support collateral damage and whose God is not money or power. Tony now uses his organizational and creative skills to find a way to feed many people without destroying the environment and without the need to prove one’s worth by first getting rich and then using that money to help those who lives are a symptom of the collateral damage. Tony new extends his concept of family.
Although some of this writing may be tongue in cheek, I am also very serious. Many times I have worked for/with those individuals who began their entrepreneurial career as drug dealers and users only to later use those same skills to run companies which served other needs and did so in a way which strove to eliminate or at least minimize collateral damage.
There is in many of us – perhaps all of us – a Tony Soprano. There is in every Tony Soprano a potential Buddhist. The question then becomes how are “we” going to work together to create a less destructive stage for our shared journeys.
Written October 13, 2016
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