Stakeholders’ Bill of Rights
H. James Harrington
Corporate values can be defined
as an organization’s deeply ingrained operating rules
or guiding principles. I like to call them “The Stakeholders’
Bill of Rights.” Some people might see them as specific
cultural attributes that drive behavior. Winning organizations
set out to create a specific culture and operating style
based on their values.
For example, Owens Corning uses guiding principles in
place of values. Their guiding principles are:
Customers are the focus of everything we do.
People are the source of our competitive strength.
Involvement and teamwork is our method of operation.
Continuous improvement is essential to our success.
Open, two-way communication is essential to the improvement
process and our mission.
Suppliers are team members.
Profitability is the ultimate measure of our efficiency
in serving our customers’ needs.
Values, basic beliefs, guiding principles or operating
rules--call them what you will. The important thing is to
define and live up to them because they’re the fundamentals
upon which an organization should be built.
In contrast, losing organizations usually don’t
have explicit values. Instead, they’ll have “hollow”
values, or perfectly stated values that only few within
the company operate by.
It’s extremely important that everyone knows, understands
and lives up to his or her organization’s values.
It’s an essential starting point. All managers have
an obligation to model their activities so that they reinforce
these
values. Managers who can’t believe and live up to
them have no right to be managers in their organizations.
They really have only two options:
1. Get the organization’s values changed.
2. Get out of management.
An individual manager may slip up once in a while and
not live up to all of the organization’s values, but
this is an area where Six Sigma error rates are too high.
Also, each individual--especially managers at all levels--should
have a personal, documented set of value statements. It’s
very important that there’s no conflict between the
individual manager’s values and the organization’s
values. Any manager whose personal values are not aligned
with the organization’s will be faced with a life
of hardship, disappointment and failure.
When I started my business career, my father, Frank Harrington,
shared his personal value statements with me and recommended
that I adopt the same set. I agreed and still find them
good objectives around which to build my life. I suggest
that you, as quality individuals, prepare your own value
statements and do everything you can to live up to them.
To help you get started, I’ll share my values with
you. They were created originally by Dr. J. L. Rosenstein
and modified to meet my personal beliefs.
I want to be someone:
Who is concerned with how he can help others instead of
himself, who offers loyalty instead of demanding it, who
thinks of himself as an assistant instead of a boss and
who thinks it’s his job to help others do their jobs
better
Whose pride is peculiar because it’s in his people,
who walks around the organization and says: “Yes,
it was well done but not by me. I just happen to be lucky
enough to have the best team in the whole organization.”
If something goes wrong, he feels that maybe he wasn’t
on the ball. Maybe he didn’t direct, guide, teach
or lead his team properly. He takes the blame for anything
that goes wrong.
Who never makes a promise he doesn’t intend to keep;
a man who would say: “Let’s not wait until tomorrow
when it’s more convenient for me. Let’s sit
down right now and go at it. Now is the time.”
Who can get excited about others’ ideas and respect
them no matter how simplistic they might seem--someone who
can pick others up and encourage them when their ideas are
rejected.
Who can handle every grievance right now, unlike the fellow
with a 40-room mansion but no garbage pails who says, “We
just kick it around until it gets lost.”
Who can respect others but also discipline them if they
get out of line--someone who will fight for others every
step of the way, even up to the company’s president
and chairman of the board, if necessary, to see that they
get a fair shake and a square break.
I will admit that I have not always lived up to all of
these values, but I have tried and I continue trying to
meet these high standards.
H. James Harrington is CEO of the Harrington Institute
Inc. and chairman of the board of four other companies.
He has more than 45 years of experience as a quality professional
and is the author of 22 books. Visit his Web site at www.harrington-institute.com.
Letters to the editor regarding this column can be sent
to letters@qualitydigest.com.
|
