From: abulloch@garnet.berkeley.edu (Anthony Bulloch)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,alt.business.multi-level
Subject: Re: Nope again (was Re: Yup, Amway's a scam)
Followup-To: alt.business.multi-level
Date: 6 Nov 1992 22:24:45 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

Before going any further I want to state clearly that I am _not_
asserting that 'my' MLM (or anyone else's) is better than 'your' MLM.
This thread is on the specific topic of the use of dissimulation and/or
deception by distributors when recruiting, and it is on that that I
am commenting.

I remarked earlier that the company could stamp out the
practice if they wanted to.  Lou Kvitek remarked:

>That would be impossible to police.  We're talking about 1 Million
>distributors in the US.  How does Espial or NuSkin 'stamp it out'?

I stick by what I said. It would probably take 3 to 6 months, but they
could effectively reduce dissimulation/deception to a minimum. This isn't
the place for a discourse on the social dynamics of groups (!), but any
group can be radically affected by a strategic combination of code and
ethos. What you do also need is a degree of will, usually on the part
of the group itself (critical mass) and some key individual(s) within it.
So:

1) If Mr. Voss went to the head of Amway's legal department and asked for
a couple of legislative sentences to incorporate into the distributor
regulations which would make it clear that the kind of deception currently
practiced by some Amway groups is not on, it would take the legal dept.
about half an hour to draw something up.

2) It would be easy to send copies of the new regulations to all 1.8 million
distributors, making clear that Amway would entertain complaints of gross
violations, and that they would issue clear warnings to continuing offendors
and then follow through by terminating distributorships where offensive conduct
continued.

3) At the next meeting of the top distributors (in Nu Skin this would
be the Blue Diamonds) they could make deception/dissimulation the top item on
the agenda, discuss it and make clear that the company wanted them to lead the
way through each of their organisations - both by distributing their
own directives and by setting an example ('do what I do').

4) Company representatives attend plenty of publicity/recruiting meetings
and conferences organised by individual distributor groups. When they
do so they could simply make very clear that they would not lend their support
to any meeting where deception is even suspected of being used and where
the Amway identity is not made very explicit.
(At any Nu Skin or Interior Design promotional meeting there is almost
always a big 'Nu Skin International' banner, Nu Skin and IDN posters,
and a display table full of products. Ditto with Espial. That's one
obvious way to do it.)

5) Every decent-size MLM has loads of in-house journals, training tapes,
etc. - all the paraphernalia of corporate communications and culture.
These provide a wide range of opportunities for conveying to just about
every active distributor "You do it this way, not that way." And Amway
is famous for being prolific in the distributor training material it offers.

So, am I saying that Amway trains its people to deceive, as Lou worries
I may be?  Not quite that - and *of course* there are many different
organisations under the single MLM umbrella, and Lou and Jon are two
individual representatives for whom most of us have a very high regard -
but there is a point at which institutional acquiescence goes from being
passive to active. And there is such a thing as mainstream group culture
and ethos which ultimately does emanate from corporate headquarters. It _is_
a real question "what does the company want here?" The temptation is not to
disturb anything that seems to work financially (and Amway sales
continue to advance each year); but in the long-term it's the company
image and identity that's at stake.

And at this point I should make very clear that I am not picking on Amway.
I have watched a company with which I work, Nu Skin, go along with
some very questionable practices: in their case overhyping the earnings
potential and a degree of what I would call frontloading (a different
form of deception!). Then in 1991 the company decided that, despite
record financial profits, things had gone too far: that the company's
public standing and long-term health was at risk, and that the behavior
of a number of distributors ran contrary to the owner's own principles.
Within 6 months or so they had cleaned up, and the bulk of the
distributor force currently conducts its business to a pretty professional
standard of conduct, so far as I can see. (Espial, the other company I
mentioned, is still too small to have been through much of a testing phase
as yet; but I do observe that the owner's own character and values are
inevitably very apparent in the straightforward and principled way
distributors conduct their business.)

[One final 'philosophical' point. I have worked for, and with, quite a number
of different organisations in my time, and have held fairly high positions in
some. I used to be much more inclined to accept (even if reluctantly) arguments
of the inevitability of established group procedure, the power of precedent
etc.; experience now suggests to me that more often than not institutional
arguments aimed at _not_ taking action, and avoiding change, derive more from
inertia, protection of vested interest, and fear of difference, than anything
more profound - that if a course of action, or practice, seems to you to be
'right', and your assessment derives from the same basic principles that lead
you to continue being a member of your organisation in the first place, you
should go right ahead and argue your case and work for change. 'I'd like to,
but the nature/weight of the organisation makes it impossible' is usually mere
obfuscation or mystification. {Please note, by the way, that I am not arguing
from some misconceived notion about the Power and Omnipotence of Positive
Thinking, nor from any ideological conviction about Revolution!}]

Oh but Enough! Enough!  I have already gone beyond what the patience or
interest of misc.consumers readers will tolerate, I suspect. And it's
time to transfer further discussion to the group where it belongs: please
note that I have set the Follow-Up to alt.business.multi-level.

Anthony Bulloch
(510) 549-9127 (home)
FAX: (510) 883-9433
abulloch@garnet.berkeley.edu

Newsgroups: misc.consumers