I just heard that while the United States of America makes up about five percent of the world's population we have more lawyers than exist in the rest of the world. This amazes me and I wonder if it's true.

But then, we are a country based on the idea of "freedom to." Freedom to compete and pursue happiness or the American dream. Freedom to become whatever you can and rake in your share of the pie. We are competitive in a form of business warfare that requires regulation to keep individuals and huge conglomerates from overrunning the little guy. So, it may not be surprising that our government is made up almost entirely of lawyers, lawmakers, or litigators in an attempt to define boundaries and keep things fair and square. After all, freedom is not license.

On the other hand, we're also a nation of salesmen. People whose prime directive is to coerce. To use anything and everything at their disposal to convince others to buy products and services, whether potential customers really need or want those things or not. No doubt, we probably also have more salesmen than the rest of the world combined.

After all, if you live in socialism, communism, a Third World nation, or under an oppressive regime, you have little need for someone trying to sell you things. Although the leaders of such nations may be engaged in the greatest hard-sell of all. Making their subjects believe that theirs is the best of all possible worlds.

The one thing both of these two diverse professions have in common is that neither produce anything that you can see, feel, or smell. In a productive society, they are plug-ins that should rightly come into play pretty far down the line of invention, creativity, or the sort of engineering and manufacturing that once made this nation great.

I guess I'm a builder at heart. When I look back at all the different organizations I've worked for and with, I see lawyers and salesmen in terms of their marketing function or where they fit into the overall scheme of producing what will bring in the bucks. In that regard, they're more like front line infantry and advisors than planners, leaders, or generals.

I always had a hard time finding creative lawyers. People who understood the law but didn't just put a dead hand on everything you wanted to do by spouting rules and regulations. Lawyers who could understand your plans and then figure out how you could do it legally.

Salesmen were people who were never held accountable for lying. Since their primary job was to convince customers to buy the end product, all you had to do was to make certain that they had all the tools and weapons they needed in order to carry out their function. And it was up to us to provide those tools.

Nowadays, I'm not too sure that we haven't merged these two professions into something that we call leadership and I start to wonder who's putting together the campaign. It certainly can't be the plug-ins, can it?