Fear sells

There's a lot of talk in the press about the effect that the Really Bad Economy is having on employees. Tomorrow's Boston Sunday Globe has a story, "Towers Perrin executive helps firms through turbulent times," which talks about "the stress of this [economic] downturn" and asks the question, "How do companies manage the fear and uncertainty their employees have ...? The New York Times has a current blog discussion called "Fear Factor in the Workplace."

Yes, many of your employees are afraid. They read the papers, watch the local and national news. They hear anecdotes from friends and neighbors. Everyone's talking about the economy and how bad it is. And they are afraid.

But ask yourself, "Who benefits?" (If you want to sound fancy, like, er, a lawyer, you can say it in the original Latin: cui bono. Very fancy.) Who benefits from all this bad news we're hearing?

A good way to answer "Cui bono?" is to follow the money. Newspapers — whose industry is in as good shape as the buggy-whip industry was a hundred years ago — need to sell more papers. They also need to sell advertising, and to sell advertising, the papers have to promise to deliver more readers. Same with local TV stations. They need more viewers so that they can sell advertising. Ditto for the networks.

So which headline gets more people to buy a newspaper or watch the late local news — "The economy is doing just fine" or "RECESSION WORSENS — Film at 11"?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that the economy's great, or that the media is making up stories. But the papers and magazines and TV news are deciding what to report on and how to report it, and they all need something to drum up readers and viewers. So they report more about fear than about hope. Because fear sells.

Do you have any idea what the S&P 500 has done since November 20? Judging from the headlines and news stories and general malaise in the public, you might think that the market is locked in a death-spiral. In fact, the S&P 500 is up 18 percent over the past seven weeks, and it was up 24 percent just a few days ago. But you won't hear much about that in the news, because fear sells.

Talk to your employees about the economy. Help them put their fears to rest. Fearful employees are not gruntled employees, and gruntled employees make for a more profitable workplace.

Which you're going to need to survive this Really Bad Economy.