Valuable Workplaces: Constructing a Values-Based Business

June 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment

clip_image001[6]Recently, the Prime Minister of Bhutan, Jigme Thinley, was asked the cause of the current economic crisis. His answer: “Greed, insatiable human greed.” This statement is significant coming from a country where government programs are justified on their ability to produce happiness.

This highlights the contrast between values such as the pursuit of happiness (a value first espoused in the United States’ Declaration of Independence) and greed. In order to resolve the current economic crisis, businesses must inspect their operational values and ensure that greed or profitability is not the only one in evidence. It seems that we didn’t learn this during the early 2000’s when we watched corporations such as Enron and WorldCom self-destruct under the influence of greed and the pursuit of profits, at the expense of integrity, honesty and compassion. It is time that we learned to do better. Being an unabashedly proud capitalist, I am the first to espouse profitability as an important corporate value (otherwise, there would be no corporation) but there is trouble when profitability is the foremost – or only - value in operation.

The trouble is, valuing profitability above all else may create short-term benefits but produces long-term disadvantages. It does nothing to contribute to employee engagement and happiness. Employees need to find meaning in their work and understand how it helps others. Modeling values such as integrity, wisdom, compassion and forgiveness creates a positive, happy work environment and contributes to the long-term profitability of the company. James Collins and Jerry Porras document the exceptional financial performance of what they call visionary companies in their book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.

How can an organization create a positive, values-based climate? It employs a balancing act that creates organizational well-being. The five elements that need balancing are represented in the holistic well-being diagram shown above: values, body, heart, mind and spirit. Some of you may recognize this diagram from a previous article I wrote about individual well-being. What can be applied to the person can also be applied to the organization. Let’s explore these elements briefly:

  1. Values: An organization defines its values through its vision and mission statements and perhaps a values statement. These strategic documents are common to most companies and need no further explanation. However, what is uncommon is a dedication to living the espoused values, using them to make everyday decisions, and executive commitment to walking the talk. We know that when leaders model the organization’s values and explicitly use them in their decision-making, the rest of the organization follows suit.
    • Self-assessment questions: Leaders, are you modeling the values of your organization? Do you consciously base your decisions on corporate values? Do you hold people accountable to the organizational values, and recognize others when they do?
  1. Body: The corporation or organization must take care of the basic physical needs of its employees. This includes paying fair wages, providing adequate employee benefits and creating a safe and comfortable work environment. This includes also making sound business and financial decisions, which contribute to the fiscal health of the organization.
    • Self-assessment questions: Is your work environment ergonomically sound? Are your employees paid at or above marketplace averages? Is the organization using its financial resources wisely and producing a healthy profit margin?
  1. Heart: The heart pillar represents the emotional intelligence and the quality of interpersonal relationships in the organization. It assumes that leaders treat employees with compassion, respect, forgiveness and fairness. This element can be measured by the number of positive values in operation in the workplace, which contribute to employee loyalty and therefore customer loyalty. This progression looks like this:

Employee treatment = Employee loyalty = Customer treatment = Customer loyalty

    • Self-assessment questions: Is there an absence of fear and suspicion in your workplace? Are employees comfortable expressing their opinions and offering suggestions? Do managers create an environment of trust and respect?
  1. Mind: The organization can create an environment of continuous learning and discovery. This is accomplished on both an individual and corporate level. The organization should be open to feedback and take action upon receiving it. For employees, it is important to know that the employer will offer job-related training and the opportunity to advance in their careers.
    • Self-assessment questions: Is there a defined career path for all employees? Are employees offered continual learning and training opportunities? Does the organization seek feedback on its performance from both employees and customers? Do managers act on the feedback received?
  1. Spirit: The human spirit longs to serve others, find meaning in work and to make a difference in the world. In order for work to be meaningful, it must provide an opportunity to serve others, both inside and outside the organization. The spirit is fed by working for an organization that stands true to its vision and mission and lives its values everyday.
    • Self-assessment questions: Do employees understand the overall mission of the company? Do employees understand how they contribute to the mission? Are employees provided opportunities to serve their community through their actual work and through charitable activities? Does the leadership discuss and act on ways to make a difference in the local and global community?

Construct your organization on the solid foundation of values while caring for the body, heart, mind and spirit, and you will create a sustainable and ethical business that enjoys long-term profitability!


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Put a Stop to Labeling

October 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment

The human brain is wired to instantly categorize everything we perceive.  This is a good thing in life threatening situations, as when you are about to step on a coiled rattlesnake on the ground and your brain calls out an immediate "Freeze!" warning to all muscles.  Other times, however, that instant categorization mechanism that says "coiled snake-like object on ground equals danger!" can trip you up.  What if the snake turns out to be a harmless garden hose?  Your brain has sent a danger signal to your body for no reason.  As you reach higher stages of emotional, moral and spiritual development, you need to check the brain’s instinctual tendency to label items or people as "good" or "bad", "safe" or "dangerous", "us" or "them".  To create a spiritually intelligent workplace, we need to put a stop to labeling by using our higher spiritual powers.

This requires an evolution from duality thinking to "both/and" thinking.  The instinctual part of the brain will continue to instantly categorize things but it is up to the executive function of the brain to translate those black and white judgments into inclusive, non-judgmental and holistic viewpoint. Once this translation is complete, the individual can now act in a considered, inclusive way. It looks like this:

end of labeling

Step three is critical.  This is where the person’s vigilant "observer mind" catches itself doing its normal categorizing. The observer mind is that part of you that is divinely connected and represents your highest self. "Oops," says the observer mind, "Let’s not go there.  What other perspective or viewpoint could I take that is more spiritually mature?" The brain reconsiders, assuming a broader, whole-cosmos perspective, and then chooses the best reaction to the stimulus.  A good way to help your brain assume this whole-cosmos perspective is outlined in a previous post on the heavenly perspective.

This process goes slowly at first, as you engage the observer mind more actively. This requires spiritual will and perseverance to train your mind to catch itself as it jumps to conclusions that may not serve your highest truth.  Persevere! Keep at it!  There are precious rewards, such as increased love, compassion and inner peace, in making progress toward retraining your brain.

This is what the process looks like when you have made progress in re-training your brain to stop labeling:

end of labeling2

The brain takes the high road, so to speak, and bounces lightly into the categorizing and labeling stages but quickly advances to the inclusive thinking. 

You might even get so advanced as to skip steps two and three altogether.  Bravo to you if you are here in your reactions:

end of labeling3

Here are some labels that I’d like to adopt a more inclusive, whole-cosmos perspective of:

Christian vs. Muslim
Theist vs. Atheist
Republican vs. Democrat
Rich vs. Poor
Managers vs. Employees
Man vs. Woman
Straight vs. Gay
Good vs. Evil

I propose that, instead of labeling, we start thinking of all people as simply "children of God", "the Divine’s people" or "souls on a journey together".  Easier said than done, huh?


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Seven Characteristics of an Authentic Leader

August 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

clip_image002Being an authentic leader is a cornerstone of building a spiritually intelligent workplace. To be authentic is to be real, to be genuine. If we consider that the opposite of authentic is phony or fake, then most people would vote for authenticity. It’s like a counterfeit coin, which doesn’t buy us anything once it is discovered, whereas an authentic coin is highly valuable. Personal authenticity breeds trust, commitment and loyalty in a work group. Teams that practice authenticity are stronger, more productive and experience less interpersonal friction than those that are – well, inauthentic.

Teams that empower each person to lead in their own way tend to be authentic, too. I am a firm believer that any person, not just the designated manager, can lead from where they sit in the organizational chart. I’ve seen teams accomplish great things as they rally around a peer who leads and has great influence because of their personal authenticity.

So, what characterizes authentic leaders? They have the following seven qualities:

  1. Awareness and development of personal strengths: The authentic leader has a high degree of self-awareness and understands her strengths. She has developed her innate talents into strengths by practicing them and building a body of knowledge in that area. She may have discovered her strengths through honest self-assessment or been aided by participating in a course of study such as Brio Leadership’s In-Powering People and Teams training. She knows that she is brilliant when she works in her strengths, and is dull and unhappy when she is not.
  2. Awareness and acknowledgement of personal weaknesses: Along with understanding strengths comes self-awareness of one’s weaknesses. The authentic leader recognizes his weaknesses, as indicated by those tasks that he neither enjoys nor excels at. For example, some people do not perform well when asked to do detailed, repetitive work such as bookkeeping. The authentic leader acknowledges his weaknesses and finds ways to mitigate them, often by delegating those tasks to others.
  3. Values-based decision-making: The leader knows her own values and makes decisions based on them. The leader’s values allow her to make forward-thinking decisions that keep the team or organization true to its mission. Says Richard Barrett, author of Liberating the Corporate Soul, “Values are the anchors we use to make decisions so we can weather a storm. They keep us aligned with our authentic self.”[1] An authentic leader will also make sure that her values are aligned with those of the organization she works for.
  4. Integrity: Integrity is doing what you say you will do, being trustworthy and keeping confidences. You can count on authentic leaders to be good for their word. Integrity is the foundation for building high-performance teams. Teams that work in a trustworthy environment will produce much better results than those that are characterized by suspicion and a lack of trust.
  5. Empathy and respect for others: Authenticity means not only being true to yourself, but respecting others and being empathetic to their individual circumstances. An authentic person knows that all team members are not alike, and that our differences, when respected and acknowledged, can make the team stronger. Authenticity is the ability to listen empathetically and with an open heart to the stories, backgrounds and needs of others.
  6. Courage: This is the ability to stand up for what you think is right, to make unpopular decisions, and to speak up respectfully when you disagree with what others are saying, even if it is your manager. I once had a manager who complained that all her direct reports “only blow me sunshine,” meaning that they told her only the good news. She was requesting more courage on the part of her direct reports.
  7. Emotional management: Lest we think that being authentic means to inappropriately express all emotions as they are felt, we must address the need for emotional management. The authentic leader will not hide his true feelings, but will have enough self-control to respond rather than react to emotional triggers. He will know better than to lash out at others when angry, but will be able to express anger in a way that is productive, and with timing that will ensure maximum impact. A leader that expresses anger often and inappropriately will only be feared, not respected – and we know for a fact that human beings do not produce their best work when fearful. The leader who acknowledges his feelings in a way that respects the other person will engender loyalty in his team.

Are you an authentic leader? To find out, ask yourself if you display these seven characteristics. If you fail in one or more of these qualities, think of how you might develop it in yourself. Your team and your organization will profit from your efforts to become more authentic.

[1] http://www.valuescentre.com/docs/ValuesBasedLeadership.pdf


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