Category Archives: Organizational Values
Set No More Than Six Personal Values
Set No More Than Six Personal Values Photo credit: iStock “Values tell you what to do when you don’t know what to do.” -Tom McCoy, executive vice president and general counsel for CH2M HILL Your personal values are essential. They set your moral compass. They guide your behavior when you are under the stresses of life. Most people have not clearly articulated their personal values, and we strongly encourage you to do so. Recently, someone contacted us with questions about developing her personal values. She had difficulty selecting three to six values, as we recommend, and further wondered if it is advisable to have separate personal values versus work values. Yes, most people have more than three to six values that are …Continue Reading
A New, Overarching Goal for Boards
One of the painful results of boards embracing the goal to “maximize shareholder value” is shown in the Edelman Trust Barometer: Only 53% of respondents trust business Only 18% of the general population trust business leaders to tell the truth The overarching goal for corporate boards should not be to maximize shareholder value. Instead, boards should set as their primary objective to: Build an excellent, ethical, and enduring organization. Excellent means achieving extraordinary results for customers, employees, and shareholders. Ethical means achieving those results the right way, with integrity, not cutting ethical corners. Enduring means achieving those results sustainably, being conscious of the firm’s impact on the planet, and acting responsibly to ensure precious resources are not wasted. Enduring also means acting sustainably inside the firm, not burning people out, nor …Continue Reading
Is Your Organization Falling Short on Values?
Image: iStock Photo Recently, we heard about a law firm whose partners, after operating for a while, decided to draft a list of the firm’s values. As part of that process, the partners discussed their own personal values: their core beliefs and principles, and what they valued most. During that exercise, it soon became clear that “family” was at or near the top of the list for every single partner. Unfortunately, as with many other law firms, their enterprise involved long hours, lots of travel, stress, pressure, weekend work, emergency calls, being constantly on-call, and all the usual trappings of high-powered people in the midst of their years of productivity and success. The price of that success, for all the partners, was an incredible amount of time away from their …Continue Reading
