Only if you say what you mean and do what you say. Find out how leaders at all levels get others to measure up to company values and choose success in challenging times.
BY ROBERT HEDLEY
People leave an employer primarily for two reasons: a boss with inconsistent leadership and/or a company that professes one thing but seldom fulfills it. As today’s organizations continuously change and adapt, employees more than ever need a common sense of purpose and clear guidelines regarding what is expected of them to get the job done.
Companies with fixed core values and purpose have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of 12 since 1925, say authors Collins and Porras in their latest book Built to last. Companies such as General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Sony, Motorola--to name only a few--have successfully adapted their business strategies and practices to the changing world over long business cycles. They have established a reputation for developing great leaders who consistently align with the company’s values and the core purpose of the business.
In recent research and work experience, I have seen CEOs and deputy ministers alike use a variety of approaches to examine values and align people to create change in their organizations. At Maple Leaf Foods Inc., a Canadian multinational corporation, values and vision are the glue that binds 14 operating companies together in one common culture. In the words of the company’s CEO, Michael McCain: “Fourteen businesses, one culture.” This approach allows the company to move people across the businesses, accelerating the development of leaders and transfer of business practices, thereby strengthening the corporation overall.
When an organization espouses core values, both executives and those who lead within the company must strive for consistency in the eyes of their employees, customers and shareholders. You must say what you mean and do what you say. Values-based leadership comes from leaders who consistently do what they say, make decisions and model their behaviour along clear values. Employees, customers and shareholders view this congruency between thought, speech and action as effective leadership.
CEOs and executives often fail because they think that their values and beliefs are implicit by what they do; they assume that others understand their actions. Instead, they must act the same way that they expect their employees to act. They need to take the time to engage people, explaining when their own or others’ behaviour is not consistent and then move on. No one is perfect. They must take the time to acknowledge when someone has demonstrated consistent behaviour in both normal or challenging circumstances; this positive reinforcement will minimize inconsistent behaviour in others.
Beginning with the CEO, who models the company’s values, and continuing through all ranks of the organization, leaders need to communicate the meaning and purpose of core values in a variety of ways. Some examples:
· Provide recruitment tools and orientation programs that preview the company values.
· Set up a foundational leadership development program.
· Create an awards program to recognize what great behaviour looks like.
· Set up a voluntary coaching program for your best leaders to model what “great” looks like.
· Hold a dialogue on leadership values.
CEO leadership dialogue at Maple Leaf Foods Inc.
When it comes to the value “Do what’s right,” McCain provides his own checklist of what “great” looks like. In his words: “At face value, ‘Do what’s right’ seems pretty obvious: Act with integrity and treat people with respect. But let’s apply it to leadership; what behaviours do great leaders demonstrate consistently that fall in the category of ‘Do what’s right’?” Ask yourself these questions:
· Are my integrity and the integrity of the company our most cherished assets?
· Do I always focus on the right business answer, not the popular business answer?
· If I make a commitment, do I always follow through, on time and with high- quality work?
· Do I always give the same facts, regardless of the audience?
· Do I treat people how I would like to be treated?
· Do I always provide open, honest and direct feedback?
· Am I approachable and trusted by my peers, direct reports, and manager?
· Do I make sure I challenge and debate facts, ideas, and positions without attacking the person?
· Do I make sure I debate things because I believe in my facts and position, not because I want to hurt someone else?
These are some of the points I consider when assessing my “doing what’s right.”
Walmart is perhaps the most noted case of a leader aligning values and building culture. For almost the entire 40-plus-year existence of the company, Walmart leaders have held a Saturday morning meeting once a month. Today, due to the company’s tremendous growth, the meeting is both in-person and on-line. Every electronic session includes a dialogue on a particular value and opportunities for people to share stories; over time, these tales have become folklore with employees and suppliers.
Today’s best leaders and companies extend the use of their values into all people practices, including performance assessment, 360 development assessment and feedback surveys, hiring tools and balanced scorecard measures that track overall leadership values-consistent behaviour. This ensures that a company’s core values live in the day-to-day workplace. These hold far more weight than a plaque on the wall in the boardroom or the CEO’s personal leadership mantra.
How can you get started?
Undertake a review of the recruitment and orientation processes, the kind of training that’s done and how people are rewarded and promoted. Look at your performance management approach. Also, get some small groups together and ask them about meeting structures, times, decision-making processes, formal and informal communications channels and expectations like “face time.” Don’t limit your investigation to written systems and policies. Values-consistent leadership is about how it happens in real-time practice.
On a more personal note, make a list of values that you live by. How are these values integral to your vision of your organization? How do they guide the behaviour of your employees? Can you remember a story that relates to learning a valued lesson? Lastly, identify a few specific behaviours that will help you live by the adage: “Say what you mean and do what you say.”
Robert Hedley is vice-president, leadership of Maple Leaf Foods. Contact: hedleyrw@mapleleaf.ca
pullquotes
“Executives often fail because they assume that others understand their actions.”
“Positive reinforcement will minimize inconsistent behaviour in others.”
“Today’s best leaders extend the use of their values into all people practices.”
[SHELLEY: This sidebar doesn’t have to accompany this article. It can go wherever you have room. If you don’t have room for it, don’t use it.]
Sidebar
Values exploration [kicker]
Protect your sense of destiny[head]
Peter Koestenbaum is a classically trained philosopher in his early 70s. With degrees from Stanford, Harvard and Boston University, he has dedicated a half-century to the vigorous exploration of questions such as: “What does it mean to be a successful human being? How do leaders act when the risks around them seem overwhelming? How do we tap into greatness in the face of fear?”
He has posed these questions to top executives at companies such as EDS, Ericsson and Ford. In his view, answering them is the first task of a leader. In Koestenbaum’s words: “Unless the distant goals of meaning, greatness and destiny are addressed, we can’t make an intelligent decision about what to do tomorrow morning, much less set the long-term strategy for a company.”
He adds: “Nothing is more practical than for people to deepen themselves.”
In today’s post-9/11 world, Koestenbaum offers this advice: “Commit yourself to an ethical world, a civilized existence, a moral order. You have to ask yourself: Am I an ethical person, first and foremost, always and with no exceptions?”
Here are his views on leadership: “To be a leader is to be awake and alert, to be dissatisfied at all times. . .We must resolve to work with greatness and never forget to do so again.”
He adds: “Every work day is a concert, a Nobel-prize ceremony or an Olympic victory. More than ever, we should celebrate the artists in business, the reformers in life and the missionaries in organizations. It is your highest responsibility: Protect your sense of destiny, greatness, dignity and hope.”
Koestenbaum is co-author of Freedom and Accountability at Work: Applying Philosophic Insight to the Real World (Jossey-Bass, 2001). Contact: pkipeter@ix.netcom.com
(Source: Fast Company)
Reprinted from PeopleTalk Magazine Fall 2003 (V6, N3)