Treating employees well is a strategy that has proven successful in a wide variety of circumstances. That doesn't make it a principle. Dear Bob …I’ve read your columns and Advice Line for years, and I’ve always thought of you as championing the cause of treating employees fairly and well.But in your recent columns I seem to be seeing a very different Bob Lewis — one who sees employees as expendable, to be exchanged for better ones as soon as it’s convenient. What gives? Do your principles change the moment the economy goes bad?– ConcernedDear Concerned … No, my principles haven’t changed. And I never considered treating employees well to be a matter of principle. Or, rather, I’ve always considered treating employees well to be a personal principle rather than a business principle.And I don’t try to impose my personal principles on anyone else, on the theory that everyone has their own and has no interest in mine beyond a mild academic curiosity.My business principles are based on a somewhat old-fashioned view of things — that those running them should be trying to build a sustainable and profitable enterprise (note that this isn’t necessarily the same goal as “maximizing shareholder value”; as I say, I’m old fashioned about such matters). For those who want to build a sustainable and profitable enterprise, treating employees well, which is to say treating employees as adults who come to work to be successful, is a more profitable way to operate than the alternatives.That isn’t always the case, but it is more often than it isn’t.The advice I give depends on the question asked, of course. When the question is personal, I give advice to help the person succeed. When the question is organizational I give advice about how to help the organization succeed. We’re in extraordinary times right now, and that means the solutions that make the most sense in ordinary circumstances aren’t always going to fit. Sometimes that includes a need to be more calloused about dealing with individual employees, if that’s what the situation calls for in order to prevent the organization from failing.My principles haven’t changed, because Advice Line and Keep the Joint Running aren’t, for the most part, expressions of my personal principles.I hope that clears things up. Thanks for asking. – Bob Technology Industry