Many folks are out of work and laid off due to the business slow down caused by the normal business cycle + the global banking financial crisis. Now out of work they are scrambling to find a new source of income, which might include starting their own business, or trying to find a job in a very tough market. Now let’s say that they decide to start their own company, but since they have been gainfully employed they do not have more than a couple of areas of expertise.

Now they could take their current knowledge base and go into competition against their former employer. Of course, if they do this, they would be basically taking insider information, which they learned while employed and using it to compete directly against them. Is this ethical? The answer is no, no it’s not, in fact it is quite dishonest and disreputable. However, anyone whose never been self-employed may not think so.

After all, if you’ve never had a former employee steal all your customers or try to, or stolen your trade secrets you wouldn’t understand. But, if you have been an employee and you “think” that your employer owes you something, or it’s their fault for you losing your job, income, and perhaps even your home and marriage, you might be able to rationalize to your little mind that they owe you something?

Having been self-employed all my life, I have had former employees that I’ve fired for stealing from me, start their own businesses using our trade secrets and customer base to get started. Luckily, they could not compete long, but it was a awful display in the worst levels of integrity I’ve ever witnessed amongst humans. If you do compete against your former employer, I hope one of your employees someday does the same thing to you. And you’ll have earned that sweet revenge for your lack of integrity. Think on that.

Lance Winslow – Lance Winslow’s Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with site

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Tags: compete, match, person, ethics, business