George Bailey awoke early the morning after Christmas and decided to go for a walk.  Without really thinking about it, he found himself back on the bridge from which he had jumped the night before.  Leaning forward against the railing, he smiled to himself and whispered into the cold morning air: “So, Clarence, what do I do now?”  He was shocked to hear an immediate response.  He turned to see Clarence leaning on the rail beside him, as if he had been waiting there all along…

“That is the question, isn’t it George…?  Now don’t look so surprised.  Just because I got my wings doesn’t mean we’re done with each other.”

George stared.  Clarence went on.

“Last night I showed you what would have happened if you hadn’t lived.  Your older brother would have died young; Mary would have never married; Potter would have taken over the whole town.  Pottersville—can you imagine?  But you did live—and you did make a difference for so many…”

“And I didn’t even know I was doing it.  I wasn’t really trying.  I was just reacting to things that happened in front of me—just going on instinct.”

And your instincts were good, George.  You made a lot of good decisions in the moment.  But George, I am here to tell you some hard news.  You can’t go back to living the way you did before.” 

“I think I know what you mean, Clarence.  I know I was a jerk sometimes, not really appreciative of everything—well, much of anything—but I won’t make that mistake again…  Isn’t that what you mean?  That I can’t go on being on the ungrateful jerk that I’ve been too often?”

“That’s a part of it, George.  But really only a small part.”

“What’s the rest of it?  What’s the big part?”

 The big part, George, is that you’ve started what some in my business call ‘The Grand Transition.’  Once you start that, there’s no going back.  And I’ve got to tell you now, George, this can get pretty rough.”

George turned away.  Clarence paused and then said softly: “Do you want to hear more?”

It’s the holiday season.  “That time of year.”  And I’ve been thinking about a classic holiday movie in a new way. 

You remember the Jimmy Stewart character, George Bailey, in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  If you’ve seen the movie—maybe this year, again—you remember the gist of it.  George grows up in Bedford Falls, a small town he never quite manages to leave, despite his avowals to “shake off the dust” of that town and see the world, to embark on a big adventure and make something of himself “out there.”

What he winds up doing is inheriting his father’s perpetually struggling business, Bailey Savings and Loan, and serving customers that Mr. Potter, the greedy banker villain in the story, would never touch.  George gives them the loan they need to finance their dreams, however modest, of a fresh start, new career, small house, whatever.  Although he never admits it consciously, George has also inherited his father’s values, his fundamental respect for the dignity and dreams of the average person. 

And therein lies the near tragedy of the film—George’s lack of consciousness.  He nearly commits suicide—not really because of Mr. Potter’s thievery—that’s the surface trigger, a plot device, if you will.  The deeper cause?  He lacks consciousness of at least two things: his deeper values and his real impact on other people and on the town itself.  The “angel” who appears helps him with the latter, but what of the former? 

We never really know if George connects the dots—that it was his “living out” of his father’s values and his “providing for others that which he so valued for himself”—the opportunity to pursue one’s dreams— that led so many to come to his aid in the end.    

Suppose he did come to connect the dots?  And suppose he actually chose to consciously, deliberately, intentionally live his values in every domain of his life…including his business? 

What do you suppose would have happened?  For George?  His family?  Bailey Savings & Loan?  Bedford Falls?

I get a kick out of imagining a sequel to the movie.  And I’ll share my musings in a subsequent post. 

For now, though, I’m sitting with a different question: What might happen if I were to live more fully my own deeper values, my essential convictions?  For me?  My family?  My business?  The community?

If you’re so inclined, I invite you to take a few moments and consider the same this holiday season: What might happen if you were to more consciously, deliberately, intentionally embrace yours? 

What kind of wonderful might that look like?  What kind of wonderful might emerge?

In reference to a book he was reviewing, Bill Bradley, the former Senator and basketball star, wrote the following in today’s NY Times:

 I once asked the estimable Oscar Robertson what he thought of Michael Jordan, then in his third year in the NBA.  Oscar said, “He’s not great yet.”

Why not, I asked.

“Because he hasn’t learned how to make the worst player on his team good,” Oscar replied.

Want a standard to assess yourself as a leader?  To gauge the cultural health of your organization?  Ask yourself (and others): Does working in our organization help everybody—at every level, in every role—grow?  Does it make them better?

If yes, terrific.  What are you doing that makes it so?  How will you enhance and enrich your efforts, while protecting against possible threats?

If no, why not?  What do you need to be doing differently to raise your organization to a championship level?  What needs to be different within your culture?

Oscar Robertson’s criterion for greatness reminds me of Robert Greenleaf’s seminal piece, “The Servant as Leader,” in which he set forth his now famous “test” for servant leadership:

The best test, and most difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons?  Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?  And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society: Will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?

TD Industries is a successful Texas-based HVAC commercial contractor; its late founder and subsequent generations of leaders were and are devoted to the practice and teaching of servant leadership principles.  On a corporate video made some years ago, a tough looking employee was asked what difference it had made in his life to work for a company that took servant leadership seriously.  “It has made me a better daddy,” he said.

What does working in your organization do for your people?  Are they really growing? 

Are we great yet?

Early in 1986, with business school graduation a few months away, I was offered a marketing job with Frito Lay (division of Pepsico) at their headquarters in Dallas.  Pepsico was known for a particularly aggressive culture back then, but I don’t remember carrying other pre-conceptions as I flew down for a recruiting visit.

I don’t recall much about my day in the office, either. Pretty standard stuff. What I do remember is that the two Frito Lay fast trackers who took me out that night arrived at my hotel in a top down convertible clutching “roadies.” Strike one. The whole drinking and driving thing…

Then they took me to a nightclub that featured scantily-clad women dancing in cages above the crowd. Strike two. The whole women in cages thing…

The entire evening they spoke to me as if it were a given that I would be attracted to this kind of scene. Strike three. The whole “you have no idea who I am or what matters to me—and no interest in finding out” thing…

Not that it was a great loss to Frito Lay or Pepsico, but I chose to work elsewhere.

Today, of course, if I were a soon-to-be business school graduate with an offer from Pepsico, I would check out their web-site before my recruiting visit. I would see their emphasis on “Performance and Purpose” and examples throughout the pages.  And I would see their CEO, Indra Nooyi, speaking with great dignity, eloquence, and passion regarding Pepsico’s work in the world.

Who knows, maybe during my visit I would still be “treated” to a women-in-cages night out… I don’t think so. With double digit percentages of graduates from some Ivy League schools now applying to work for Teach for America, I think Pepsico knows that, today, organizational purpose works better than roadies, convertibles, and cages.

So, what if your company doesn’t know what Pepsico knows…?  Or hasn’t thought much about it? And what if a competitor in your industry gets the concept—or already has it? Are you more or less likely to attract the best talent? Build a great culture?

Just how do you plan to win in the years ahead? By outmaneuvering the competition? Or by inspiring high levels of commitment, creativity, and performance from talented people?

Which game do you want to be playing in the future?  What about now?

Regarding the need for corporate America to re-build trust, Indra Nooyi, the CEO of Pepsico writes:

“I believe the financial crisis has companies facing an interesting fork in the road.  One direction may lead to a short-term, performance-metric focus, an unsatisfactory and unsustainable position for the good company of the future.  The other direction, as a matter of necessity (underline added), may be for companies to take the road that the best companies have been following as a matter of choice.  That is making sure that their financial performance and their ability to be a force for good in the world—their purpose—are facing in the same direction.”  

                                        (Fortune magazine, May 4, 2009)

I think she’s right.  Purpose has become a matter of necessity.  To corporate leaders, I would ask:

Ø    Do you want to get the best people to work for you today and tomorrow?  Want to get their best efforts, their “discretionary energy,” their full measure of commitment and creativity? 

Ø    Do you want customers to trust you?  Want them to choose your products or services based on something other than price?  Want them to experience a real and enduring sense of connection with your company?

Ø    Do you want to create a genuine legacy?  Want to leave a sustainable and sustaining institution that you would be pleased to have your children and grandchildren work for someday?  That you would trust to inhabit and keep inhabitable their world?

For all of the above, your organization needs to possess and live a genuine, make-the-world-a-better-place purpose that grows out of its deeper values and strengths—as well as the needs of its customers and contexts. 

Examples abound if you care to look.  Consider Pepsico, for heaven’s sake.  The “Pepsi Challenge” today has less to do with proving x percent of people prefer the taste of Pepsi to Coke and more to do with solving water problems in the developing world and creating healthier products and eating habits all over the world.

In a poem entitled “Loaves and Fishes” (from The House of Belonging), David Whyte writes:  

This is not the age of information.

This is not

the age of information.

Forget the news,

and the radio,

and the blurred screen.

This is the age of loaves

and fishes.

People are hungry,

and one good word is bread

for a thousand.

I believe the “one good word” for businesses is their purpose, if they have a real one beyond “making money.”  Does yours?  Can you articulate it?  Do you and your company intentionally work at living it? 

If you do not think purpose matters in business, please re-consider.  Look.  Read.  Ask.  Talk.  If you are inclined, pray. 

Do not let the shortcomings of companies who profess to be purpose-oriented stop you.  No organization or leader gets it all right.  But great companies and leaders engage the question of organizational purpose or “vocation” (Why are we really here?  What are we called to do with our particular capacities in our particular place in the order of things?) in a deeper, more integrated way.  The question is: What are you doing in your organization, with your leadership and life?

If you cannot or will not shift your thinking, please make plans to step away from corporate leadership and elevate others who do.  People are hungry…for meaning…for purpose…for a sense that they are making a real difference as they make a living.  And some people close and far away are hungry…literally. 

As a matter of necessity, business must lead the way to a more sustainable future across many domains—environmental, social, economic, to name several.  The age of organizational performance without purpose has surely passed.

In a 2006 interview, Ray Anderson, founder and Chairman of Interface, the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpet, recounted the personal epiphany in 1994 that ultimately led to his company’s vision to become “the first company that by its deeds shows the entire industrial world what sustainability is in all its dimensions.”  Below are a few excerpts from that interview and a question from me: 

We’d begun to hear this question from customers that we’d never heard before, in so many words, “What’s your company doing for the environment?” for which we had no answer…

I was not an environmentalist.  I had never given a thought to what we were taking from the earth or doing to the earth to make our products…  But I was attuned to my customers, and when I found a subject they were interested in, I got interested…

When I found Hawken’s book [The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken], it was a spear in the chest experience; and I read it and wept because it laid out so clearly the problems of the industrial system, the system of which my company, my creation, this third child of mine was an integral part…

Step by step we began to get traction and move up that mountain [“Mount Sustainability”]…

And the goodwill in the marketplace is just astounding.  Those same people that were asking that question 11, 12 years ago—“What’s the company doing?”—have embraced the company for what we are doing…

It’s turning out to be a better way to make a bigger profit…

Today I would say that pioneering this new way of doing business is the ultimate purpose of Interface.  It goes beyond the bottom line to a purpose, a higher purpose, that all can subscribe to, be part of, be motivated by and be challenged by.

So what is your organization’s purpose “that all can subscribe to, be part of, be motivated by and be challenged by?” 

Do you have one?  A real one?  (Not just some nice-sounding words for your walls, web-site, and employee handbook…)  If not, why not?

You don’t have to be the first one up Mount Sustainability, but don’t you want to play a bigger game?  And win bigger, too?

                               ——————————————————–

You can view the entire interview with Ray Anderson at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2769291606811106137.

Check out the company at www.interfaceglobal.com. 

                              ———————————————————-

*In a completely subjective and idiosyncratic way, this blog will recognize people whose thoughts and/or actions reflect a “small boat ethic” as described in earlier posts. 

If you and your organization are not committed to something worth committing to, you will not sustain a small boat ethos/culture on your ship—no fierce attention to the external and internal environment, no mutual accountability, no collaboration squared.  At least not beyond today’s storm.  It will be every man and woman for themselves.  When the seas calm down and the winds turn favorable (and they will), how will you compete against those crafts with a more committed crew?  The difference will translate into distance.  You and your boat will be left behind unless…

…You discover, create, unearth, or re-claim some larger purpose for your enterprise that addresses the “Why” question: Why do we exist?  What are we committed to doing that no one else can do as well as we can?  What unique contribution can we make?  What need(s) are we passionate about meeting?

Some examples of organizations who’ve taken on the “why” question in a sustained way:

A commercial carpet manufacturer (Interface; LaGrange, GA) striving to become the world’s first ecologically sustainable industrial company…  A quick service restaurant chain (Chick-fil-A; Atlanta, GA) committed to glorifying God in everything it does and having a positive impact on all with whom it comes in contact…  A small hospital (Griffin Hospital; Derby, CT) working to change the face of healthcare from a provider-dominant model to a patient-centered system and to create a healthier community—not to be “the healthcare provider of choice in the metro area”…  Note the difference. 

None of these organizations are perfect.  But they exhibit more of a small boat culture than most, and they’ve been winning in the marketplace for customers and employees for years on the strength of it.

So a high stakes purpose leads to a small boat culture and marketplace success—as do 2-3 carefully chosen, articulated, and reinforced values.  Yes, values.  I’m not referring to the usual list of platitudes—integrity, quality, teamwork, service, etc.—that’s completely interchangeable with other companies’ lists.  In an age of authenticity that list leads your people to see you as hypocritical, detached from reality, or both.  It breeds cynicism.  Throw it overboard.  Then talk to some current and desired customers about what they most value and need from you before coming up with 2-3 core values (to which you commit fully) that resonant deeply with them, too. 

Example: A successful and growing rocket science engineering firm (ERC; Huntsville, AL) organizes itself around “proactive responsibility” and “long term authentic relationships” because they discovered that their clients (which, according to their CEO, include customers and employees) want that from them in particular; and those values are congruent with who they are and aspire to be.  

So when you’re serious about a big purpose and a small set of customer-centric values whose day-to-day enactment helps you win…with your systems and processes aligned accordingly…and a crew that mostly lives it and fewer and fewer onboard who don’t—then you’re meeting the captain’s challenge.  You’re creating a small boat culture.  You’re on the voyage of a lifetime.

Next Post…  Ethics on a Small Boat IV: The Manager’s Challenge