Writings
Excerpts from Character at Work, page 3
Merit
If localness is about liberating individuals, then the value merit is about liberating ideas. In fact, the two values are linked: localness frees people to generate ideas about their own work, and merit encourages the judging of those ideas based on their inherent worth, not on their degree of political connivance. In a merit-based organization, people strive to attain the organization’s purpose and vision in a way that is consistent with its values and strategy—that is, what it stands for and intends to achieve.
Openness
Have you ever attended a meeting where you disagreed with what was being said, but you did not feel free to voice your own ideas? Did you then leave the meeting at break to become involved in a discussion where people felt they could say what they really thought? If your answer is yes, you’re not alone. Many people sit through such events thinking “I don’t believe that’s the right thing to do” or “I’d like to say what I think, but I know my boss doesn’t agree” or “I’d better keep quiet about my ideas; they’re just too different.” Then, they vent in the corridors or the lavatories.
An open environment attempts to resolve this tension. It seeks to create a climate in which people can share their ideas without worrying about whether others will be pleased or offended, without considering who is for or against an idea, without keeping track of “winners” and “losers.”
Leanness
Leanness is not cheapness. It is not paying low salaries or accepting shoddy work or inferior thinking. It is not understaffing. It is not locating offices in rundown buildings.
What, then, is leanness? It is demanding that every dollar we spend earn a high return for our company. It is being mindful that many business and financial mistakes arise from waste, extravagance, overspending, monument building, ostentation, unsound expansion, and other wrong-headed actions that can eventually become bad habits. Although unwise practices intensify during good times, their penalties usually strike in hard times.
Leanness is a frame of mind that helps a person or an organization grow and prosper in good times and bounce back from bad times. It is a way of life in which we base our sense of satisfaction on what we achieve, not on what we spend. A lean organization avoids spending for show because it knows that results and performance speak for themselves. It feels no compulsion to impress others.
Visions that energize the individual must have three important principles:
- They must be aspirational.
- They must be intensely personal.
- They must be internalized.