Values are everywhere these days, dripping off the pages of corporate annual reports and the subject of earnest discussions in non-profit strategic planning sessions. The World Bank, for example, advertises their core values as “personal honesty and integrity, working together in teams, empowering and respecting others, and enjoying work and family.” Who could find fault with that? These are laudable values, and if it is true that every single person in the organization around the world holds these values dear, then the World Bank must be a great place to work.
Personally, I’d find it a little creepy to be admonished by my workplace to “enjoy my family,” but maybe I’m just a misanthrope. And the Boy Scouts, what Scout doesn’t remember the endless recitation of the Scout’s personal list of values: “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” Eventually I had to get out of Scouting before I hurt myself trying to be both friendly and cheerful at the same time.
All sarcasm aside, I want talk about how and why values are so important in business, whether for-profit or non-profit. Actually, I want to shift the focus a bit, and turn the discussion from values to virtues.
What’s the difference? I’m no philosopher, but it feels to me like the conversation about values has degraded the inherent meaning of the word. Too often, the creation of a list of organizational values is tasked to a committee that finds non-controversial values that everyone can agree with – precisely because they are so undemanding. “Integrity,” for example. Who could be opposed to that? What does it mean, anyway, for you, the lowly staff person working in some giant organization?
Maybe it means, “don’t steal the office supplies or you will be fired.” Or maybe it means, “if you see a co-worker stealing office supplies, immediately report that person to your supervisor.” I’m sure that will work out well.
Values are a slippery concept, because they are so situational and easily claimed. Even the most bloated bureaucracies purport to value “efficiency,” while tiny marginal organizations proudly proclaim themselves to be “high-impact.” And everybody loves sustainability, most particularly the 50% of small businesses that fail every year, I suppose.
Virtues, on the other hand, are up to you as an individual. In good organizations, powerful virtues are rewarded by the organizational culture, and flow naturally into organization-wide values. Let’s take generosity as one example.
To be generous – as an organization, business or individual – really means, when you dig into the history of the word, to carry yourself with a sense of nobility. Confident in your own abilities and accomplishments, you are willing and able to help others. By demonstrating generosity, you show the world that you value yourself, understand that you live connected in a community, and hold yourself to high personal standards of character.
A generous individual within an organization is one who is always willing to share credit and to credit others for their good work, who never hoards information but offers it willingly so that other can do their jobs, who goes out of their way to make sure that newcomers feel welcome, and takes a particular satisfaction in helping others to be successful.
A generous organization exhibits a lot of the same characteristics, often with respect to smaller companies or non-profits. A generous organization makes its resources available to others, helps them succeed, opens doors with key funders or business partners, and is quick to praise and share credit.
A generous leader takes it as their personal responsibility to enable other members of the team to be successful – coaching, encouraging, guiding, supporting and nurturing. A generous organization or company rewards staff members who act the same way, and encourages actions in that direction.
Let me give you just one example. Several years ago, I was able to get a meeting with Indra Nooyi, the Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. I sat with her and one of her top lieutenants, Saad Abdul-Latif, and explained a program we wanted to undertake in Chennai, India (her hometown). She listened carefully, asked penetrating questions, and then promised to help. She had Saad introduce me to the CEO of Pepsi India, Sanjeev Chadha, who I subsequently talked to and met with a number of times.
Based solely on her request and Saad’s introduction, Sanjeev not only spent time talking and emailing with me, but made a number of key introductions that have proved to be enormously helpful as we build our program in India. And not only that, he did so in a way that just felt great – not once have I had the sense that he begrudged the time, or felt annoyed at having to help a little NGO with a social mission.
I think of these three executives from PepsiCo every time I am approached by a student from a local business school, or an engineer with a cool design, or a start-up organization needing help with fundraising, organizational development or anything else. I hope that East Meets West always acts in a way that honors the help others have given us.
Organizations that not only post their values on the websites but act on them every day are better and generally do better over time than organizations (and businesses) that are too focused on the bottom line, on beating the competition and on hoarding information and resources. They are better places to work, and reward and encourage people for whom the personal virtue of generosity is important.
The science of altruism and the study of generosity is in its infancy, but there are many encouraging studies showing the relationship between strong values and organizational and personal success; check out the University of Notre Dame’s program. Unfortunately, there are far more negative examples in the news lately showing what happens when values are ignored. For easy confirmation, do a quick online search for “Greg Smith” and Goldman Sachs – a company informally known as the “Vampire Squid.”