30- Core Values
Moreover, Core
values alignments help the organization as a whole to achieve its core
missions. When value is out of alignment, people work towards different goals,
with different intentions and with different outcomes. This can damage work
relationships, productivity, jobs satisfaction, and creative potentials.
There are almost
five core values which are obvious for organizations, there are many ways to
sort and define the five cornerstone values. Integrity, Accountability,
Diligence, Perseverance, and discipline.
Integrity
Integrity is no simple matter. It is particularly easy
for business people to lie. I compiled a list of 46 reasons that executives
lie. They include:
If I didn’t lie about my loyalty to the firm, they would
never have promoted me.
If I hadn’t lied, I would have exposed our firm to an
unfair lawsuit.
If the union knew our real profit prospects, they
would beat us black-and-blue at the bargaining table.
There seems to be some compelling reasons to lie in
certain situations. Although I’ve heard a few plausible defences of lying, I’m
not sure it is ever justified. Once a company starts to condone lying as a
matter of course, it is headed for serious trouble. In such businesses, lying
becomes a game. And success goes to those who play it best.
Accountability
The value of accountability is the willingness to take
responsibility for one’s own actions.
Bob Waterman has written a penetrating little book, Adhocracy:
The Power to Change. It narrates an engaging story about accountability in an
energy-cogenerating firm called AES. The people in the Beaver Valley,
Pennsylvania, AES plant learned what many workers and managers know across the
country: They learned who is responsible for the way things run. The answer, of
course, is that they are. “They,” however, is not anyone of them, but
rather a nameless, faceless force hiding in the organization. These powerful
secret terrorists, these mega-gremlins — “they” — are always there to gum up
the works.
They send the wrong material handling orders. They misprocess the medical claims. They forget to clean and maintain the machinery.
Discipline
Discipline does not always imply following orders.
Sometimes, it points in the opposite direction. Business Month named MCI one of the five best-managed companies
in 1990. The late Bill McCowan, MCI’s former Chairman and CEO, did “his best to
ban... standard procedures and practices.” He would get up in front of his
people and say: “I know that somewhere, someone out there is trying to write up
a manual on procedures. Well, one of these days I’m going to find out who you
are, and when I do, I’m going to fire you.” For McCowan, I think, discipline
meant that individuals are required to think on their feet. They have to solve
problems sensibly from the earliest days of their careers.
Perseverance
Perseverance presupposes confidence, and few companies
can match Xerox for its sense of confidence and determination. Xerox, which
pioneered the photocopying business, lost important ground to the Japanese on
price. Now, Xerox is reviving its copying business by focusing on the value added
by advanced technologies and colour copying. Focused leadership over time
implies productive, useful perseverance.
Diligence
Diligence that nurtures strength makes a difference.
Indeed, a diligent commitment to improving their already powerful position is
what makes the Japanese a formidable competitor in the electronic and
automotive industries. Similarly, the Japanese philosophy of perpetual quality
improvement is a restless, but positive diligence.
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