Jun23
Is Your Business Value-Driven? Your Success Depends on It!
Two weeks ago I reviewed the now best-selling business book, Delivering Happiness by Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh. In that review I referred to Zappos’ company culture and together we had a robust discussion on my Facebook fans page about about their ten core values listed here again:
- Deliver WOW Through Service
- Embrace and Drive Change
- Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Pursue Growth and Learning
- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
- Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
- Do More With Less
- Be Passionate and Determined
- Be Humble
I thought it would be helpful to look at the rich history of this important business concept. In 1963, IBM CEO Thomas Watson, the son of the founder of this great company, first referred to corporate values as “beliefs” and wrote these defining words in A Business and Its Beliefs,
“This then is my thesis: I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions. Next, I believe that the most important single factor in corporate success is faithful adherence to those beliefs. And, finally, I believe if an organization is to meet the challenge of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything about itself except those beliefs as it moves through corporate life.”
How do you think clean up the Gulf would be going if this were true about BP? In 1982 Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman wrote a groundbreaking business book entitled In Search of Excellence. Their conclusion?
“Let us suppose that we were asked for one all-purpose bit of advice for management, one truth that we were able to distill from the excellent companies’ research. We might be tempted to reply, ‘Figure out your value system. Decide what your company stands for’ . . . Every excellent company we studied is clear on what it stands for, and takes the process of value shaping seriously. In fact, we wonder whether it is possible to be an excellent company without clarity on values.”
Twelve years later, in 1994, Jim Collins and Jerry Porris conducted a similar six-year research project of companies who had achieved long-term corporate success, and another business classic was born: Built to Last. What Watson called having “business beliefs” and Peters and Waterman being “value-driven,” Collins and Porris refer to as having a “core ideology.” Either way, Built to Last concludes that this is key to a company’s success,
“Contrary to business school doctrine, we did not find ‘maximizing shareholder wealth’ or ‘profit maximization’ as the dominant driving force or primary objective through the history of most of the visionary companies . . . Through the history of most of the visionary companies, we saw a core ideology that transcended purely economic considerations. And—this is the key point—they have had core ideology to a greater degree that the comparison companies in our study.”
Finally, fast-forward another decade to yet another business best-seller, The Leadership Challenge, Third Edition published in 2002 by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. More research on this subject yielded the following real-world results,
“Shared values make an enormous difference to organizational and personal vitality. Research confirms that firms with strong corporate culture based on a foundation of shared values outperform other firms by a huge margin. Their revenue grew four times faster, their rate of job creation was seven times higher, their stock price grew twelve times faster, and their profit performance was 750% higher.”
What would results like this mean for your company? Isn’t it time to identify the core values of your company, define them clearly, and live by them uncompromisingly?
Do you want to grow your business? Do you have serious, defined sales goals?
— Phyllis Palacios · Jul 1, 01:09 AM
Phyllis, thank you for your comment on my blog. And, yes, having clearly defined sales goals is a key to growing one’s business. However, your post is a perfect example of how NOT to use social media, especially blog comments. First and foremost, social media is social. I assume that you wouldn’t randomly walk up to a total stranger and ask them, “Do you have serious, defined sales goals?” Would you? Then don’t do that on anyone’s blog. Listen to them, get to know them, and join in the conversation. In this way you build an all-important relationship that’s critical in doing business today. Do you agree?
— Bill Zipp · Jul 1, 07:17 AM