While much you say is generally true, the workplace has changed so drastically that your ideals are a bit outdated. I don’t think the people who are running a lot of businesses have much respect for other people, especially the employees. The world has gone crazy and that is reflected in the work environment. No professionalism, no manners or respect, not a lot of integrity.
I understand your point, but I differ in opinion on this, and I think, in a different way. I do not think the signature values and methods have changed, I believe the people expected to practice them have changed.
In the same way there are so many people who think the next war will be a push-button war, and the physical strength of the combatants is irrelevant (It won’t be-there will always be infantry, and infantry will always be required to lift heavy things, carry them on their back, and engage in hand-to-hand combat) there are people who think everything can be done from home. It can’t. Surely, there are things that can be done just as well from a home office, and power to them. But companies will still need boots on the ground. It is a pipe dream to think that is the future for success. (Not saying some degree of balance isn’t possible and fruitful)
My ideals may be outdated, but they aren’t wrong, and aren’t inferior either, in much the same way as my views on homosexuality, transsexualism, and pedophilia may be outdated but are not wrong or inferior (and we see evidence of THAT every single day)
My views on things may not be what society has decided they wish to accept, but their views are not going to produce better results in those spheres.
And so it is with business.
You asserted that in the work environment, there exists no professionalism, no manners or respect, not a lot of integrity. I disagree, even if what you assert may indeed be true in a given instance. That can certainly be found to be true.
But I am one who believes that those things such as professionalism, manners, and respect are in our own control as individuals, not the control of the company or organization. The corporation may or may not foster them, but when all is said and done, those things must be the domain of the individual.
It is true that you cannot demand respect from others, to get it, you can only earn it, and that happens on an individual level, not at a corporate level. We, as individuals, control those things, and if we practice them, they exist. I know this for a fact, because I see it with my eyes.
Expecting a corporation to solve that individual problem is like asking the government to solve individual problems, and that never works out.
I expect we may differ on this, but that is okay. I understand your view. I think I will go to my grave unchanging...as the views of many going there often are! I confess to, and accept being a dinosaur.