Corporate America needs a new story – badly.  The old story was that loyalty was rewarded.  You worked for the company for years, sacrificed family time, put in long hours, and subordinated your dreams to the company’s.  In exchange, the company gave you lifetime employment, and a decent retirement. 

Well, as you all know, that story went away a long time ago.  Layoffs, company implosions, and economic dire straits put paid to all that.  No lifetime employment, no retirement, not even many jobs – they're all gone.

Corporate America needs a new story.   Stories like this work in the background; they influence employee and customer attitudes, and they shape personal and corporate histories over the long term.  You ignore them at your personal and corporate peril. 

What are the current raw data for the new story?  Not good.  On the one hand,  we read that corporate fat cats get huge payoffs, no matter if the company is suffering.  On the other hand, layoffs abound, and if you’re lucky enough not to get laid off, then you’re working ridiculous hours with less and less support from the company.  “Give me 20 percent more next year with 20 percent less budget,” is the cry from the boss as he heads to the golf links.  Stories are emotional, and the current emotions are angry and bitter.   

The reality underlying these data points is that the middle class American lifestyle has been taking a huge hit over the past decade (and longer), while the very rich have been getting richer – much richer.   If you believe the media today, there are only two career paths left – flipping burgers at minimum wage, or becoming a billionaire by starting up a new Internet company whose products go viral. 

That’s not a good story, and we all need good stories to live by.  A huge part of America’s malaise at the moment – the anger from the left and the right – has to do with that sense that our hold on the middle class is slipping.  The one side blames government and the other side blames Wall Street – but they’re reacting to the same sense that the opportunity that American once promised is vanishing like bipartisanship in DC. 

Corporate America had better come up with a new story, one that gives us back our hope, and one that changes the view of Wall Street that it’s all about greed and self-interest.  Why should we care about working for a big business today?  What’s the quest that we’re on?  Where is the purpose, the excitement, the adventure, and where, oh where is the reward? 

Until corporate America can find a new story to tell, one that is as compelling as the old one was, trust is going to be fragile, loyalty is going to be flimsy, and attitudes are going to be grumpy.  And if you don’t think all of that goes directly to the bottom line, then you need to wake up to the reality of an economy of choice, fickle customers, and marketplaces that come and go in a matter of months. 

Corporate America needs a new story to tell.