It can be helpful to identify, clarify, and articulate these values to give us benchmarks of how we want to behave.  As individuals, reflecting on our values regularly can help us stay on the path in life we want.  As teams and organizations, a set of stated values can help us communicate and make effective decisions.

There are many ways to go about identifying your core values.  You can do your own search on the Internet and find lots of great ways to do this.  There are also sophisticated assessment tools that are out there that can help with the process.  Therefore, what I am setting forward is just one of many ways to do this.

There are different, but related, ways to do values identification at the organization level, the team level, and for us as individuals.

For organizations, I suggest asking the question: “What do we stand for?”  Think of it as a message that you are sending to the outside world, as well as to the entire team that works there.  You can do surveys and focus groups to identify the values.  You can help to remind everyone of them by putting them on your website and posting them on the walls of your facilities.  But of course – they will only come alive if you use remind one another to use them for making decisions.

For teams, I suggest: “What is special/unique about how our team works together?”  The team certainly needs to embody the values of the organization, but this is a chance to add more.  Once identified, the team can use these in interviews and onboarding.  “Just so you know, if you join our team – this is how we do things.”  I have seen teams list things like: “We work hard and have fun doing it,” “We pursue perfection, but will accept excellence,” or “We take care of one another.”

Core values can be a little more complicated for individuals, because we operate in various contexts in our lives.  Still, the question I suggest is “What do I care about?”  Personally, I have a long list of values that cover all of the environments in which I operate.  When I think of myself at work, I have values such as Collegiality, Continuous Improvement, and Impact.  In my personal life I have Spirituality, Family, and Friendships.  These are all compatible but are emphasized differently depending on the environment.  Honesty, Respect and Fairness show up in all environments.

Following our values consistently gives us Integrity – wholeness.  Jon Stewart once said:

“If you don’t stick to your values when they are tested, they’re not values.  They’re hobbies.”

Identifying and sticking to our values can make our organizations more successful and our lives more fulfilling.

• Improve Public Speaking
• Practice Giving Effective Feedback
• Learn more about AI
• Get an MBA
• Become More Visionary
• Challenge the Process

These aren’t bad things to work on, but maybe you need to call a timeout and look at something even more fundamental.

How much do people trust you?

If you did a “Trust Audit” of your direct reports and your colleagues, how much would they say they trust you on a scale from 1 – 10; if they were being honest?

How can you improve the level of trust between yourself and others?  Here are some ideas:

*Show Respect to All People at All Times.  No exceptions.  Not just the bosses.  Everyone deserves to be treated with a high level of respect and human dignity all the time.

*Be Honest.  To quote a familiar line “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”  Be forthright.  Don’t hold back.

*Exit the Spin Zone.  Are you always trying to put the best “spin” on everything?  Stop it.  People can smell BS.  Be straight with everyone.

*Be Inclusive.  Go out of your way to get to know other people in your organization – especially if they are different than you.  Make sure that everyone is encouraged to share their ideas during meetings.

*Deliver Bad News Quickly and With Candor.  For example, if there are going to be layoffs and it is going to be tough for everyone – just put it out there in as caring way as you can.

*When You Make a Mistake, Apologize.  None of us are perfect.  When you make a mistake, own up to it immediately, and do your best to make it right.  Don’t play the blame game.

*Be Fair in Your Decisions.  Don’t play favorites.  When you have tough decisions to make, find some trusted people outside your organization who can give you feedback.

You can build trust over a period of years, but it can be shattered in moments.  Be vigilant to maintain your honesty and focus in your relationships with others.  A high level of trust between you and others will make you a more effective leader and, more importantly, a better person.

Your three choices are essentially: Speak Up, Keep Quiet, or Leave the organization.

A lot of this comes down to your Values and to your Personal Situation.

If the situation is egregious and strongly violates your values, then you may feel you have no choice but to Speak Up.  If you find yourself in that situation, check out this blog on Giving Voice to Values to do so effectively.

There are a lot of reasons not to speak up.  Retribution for Speaking Truth to Power is a real thing.  Despite all that has been said about protecting “whistleblowers,” many HR systems give bosses a way to get rid of people – legally – who speak up.  One friend recently told me that where she works “people just get reorganized and demoted.”

So, you need to carefully assess your personal situation.  If being demoted or fired would cause a big problem for you then it becomes a question of what is a bigger problem for you – being without a job or witnessing the continued violation of your values.  It may be time to make a plan to proactively leave.

On this note, one of my mentors, Dr. Russell Ackoff, once told a group of our EMBAs a story that his son told him:

“Two skeletons are in a closet.” 

“What did the one skeleton say to the other skeleton?”

“If we had any guts we’d get out of here.”

Sometimes it comes down to guts – and also to having a good plan to redeploy yourself somewhere else.

Regardless, all this shows how important it is for all of us to be clear on our values and then to actively choose what we think is right in the situation.  Asking yourself “What do I stand for” can be a good beginning.

For example, one of my favorite values that we adopted at the Robert H. Smith School of Business is “We do the right things the right way.”

Authors in a recent Harvard Business Review article* say that we all need to develop our “Moral Humility” – the recognition that we all have the capacity to do the “wrong thing” if we are not vigilant.  We are all subject to biases and psychological processes that can cloud our judgement.  By first admitting to ourselves that we are potentially subject to these lapses, we can build our ethical vigilance.

The authors suggest a three-stage process to develop our moral humility:

*Prepare for Moral Challenges.  First, if this is what you want, then state a very specific goal that you want to be an ethical person.  Let others know when the opportunity arises.  For example, if you are in a team meeting and see an ethical issue, point that out and state that you think the group needs to do the ethical thing.  Finally, do your best to choose places to work which value ethics.  Our environment shapes us.  Perhaps in an interview you can ask “What types of ethical dilemmas do you all face here?” and/or “What do you all do to promote ethical practices?”  Answers to these questions will give you valuable insights into whether the organization would be a good fit for you.

*Make Good Decisions in the Moment.  While we are all subject to rationalizations as we make decisions, three tests can help us.  One is the Publicity Test: “Would you be comfortable with your decision being published on the front page of the newspaper?”  Another is the Generalizability Test: “How would you feel if your decision was used as a precedent for others facing the same issue in the future?”  and then there is the Mirror Test: “How do you feel about the decision when you look at yourself in the mirror?”

*Reflect & Learn from Successes and Failures.  No one is perfect and we all need to learn as our careers progress.  After you have experienced an ethical challenge, take some time to reflect on it and consider how you might have done things differently.  Seeking out trusted advisors during and after an ethical challenge can also be helpful in the learning process.

We all need to be on guard!  Ethical challenges could be just around the corner.  Develop your Ethical Humility and remain ever vigilant so we can be as proud as possible with the kind of person we are.

*Kouchaki, M. & Smith, I. H., “Building an Ethical Career,” Harvard Business Review, January – February 2020, pp. 135 – 139.

Ethics expert and Giving Voice to Values author, Mary Gentile, offers these suggestions in a Harvard Business Review* article:

*Treat the Conflict as a Business Matter.  Craft a carefully prepared, persuasive business argument – supported by facts.  This is much better than giving a little self-righteous speech.

*Recognize this is Part of Your Job.  Ethics is not an “optional add-on” to your job responsibilities.  It is part of your job and speaking up is not an option – it’s your job.

*Challenge Rationalizations.  As humans, we are all subject to rationalizing.  If you notice a colleague doing this then you are actually providing a service to point this out.  Rationalizations can be hard to notice when you are in the thick of a problem – especially when self-interest is involved.

*Expose Faulty Either/Or Thinking.  Often times because time pressure is involved, people only see two choices in an ethical matter.  You can be helpful by encouraging others to slow down the process and brainstorm other alternatives – or suggest something yourself.

*Make Long-Term Risks Concrete.  Very often decision makers only consider short-term consequences, when the long-term risks can be significant.  Once again, you can provide a service by slowing the process down and encouraging colleagues to think further out.

Very often, most reasonable people can notice that something going on in their organization is not right – it is unethical.  When we notice this, it is part of our job to figure out how to speak up and say something.  Take your time, as you would with any business issue, and figure out the right way to intervene and make a difference.  It is in the best interest of your organization and all involved to do so.  Speak up!

*Gentile, M.  “Keeping Your Colleagues Honest,” Harvard Business Review, March 2010, pp. 114 – 117.

What can leaders do to be even more vigilant in detecting possible lapses in ethical conduct in their organization?

A suggestion from a recent issue of Harvard Business Review* is to conduct a regular Integrity Survey. The author suggests three questions:

1.  In the past quarter, have you observed any of the following?

___ Conflicts of Interest

___ Sexual Harassment

___ Bribes or inappropriate Gifts

___ Antitrust violations

___ Theft

2.  If you observed questionable conduct, did you report it? Please answer yes or no to the following:

___ Conflicts of Interest

___ Sexual Harassment

___ Bribes or inappropriate Gifts

___ Antitrust violations

___ Theft

3.  If you noted in question two that you didn’t report the questionable conduct, why not?  Please explain:

The categories for the questions may not fit every organization and they can be changed. The idea is to do this on a regular basis, assure that people can respond anonymously, and then take action on the results.

There are two main benefits of the survey.  First, it will tell you how much of an “integrity gap” you may have.

Next, it will give you clues on how to take action.  Most organizations who have done these surveys find that they need to find better ways to allow employees to voice their concerns.  Figuring out ways to support employees in getting over the fear of retaliation, for example, is a common action.

Building an organization of integrity is a journey, not a destination.  Effective, ethical leaders understand that they must be continually vigilant in order to have the most ethical organization possible. An Integrity Survey can provide data to support the process.

*Soltes, E.  “Where is Your Company Most Prone to Lapses in Integrity?”  Harvard Business Review, July – August 2019, pp. 51 – 54.

Few people spend their lives purposing thinking about how they can violate the law and/or ethical standards for their own gain.  Yet – well-meaning and well-informed people are ethically malleable; they can end up making lapses in judgement.

And this is not just confined to the business world.  Nonprofit leaders are certainly subject to these breakdowns in decision-making.

What is needed are organizational cultures which encourage ethical behavior.  A recent article in Harvard Business Review* suggests that we keep these things in mind as develop a positive organization culture:

*Explicit Values.  Organizations should have Mission & Values statements that clearly articulate what they stand for.  Our values statement at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, for example, states:

           We do the right things the right way.

           We embrace challenges and opportunities.

           We have a collective passion for excellence.

Of course, it is not just enough to have these posted on the walls of a building (which we have), they must be lived out and exemplified by leaders at all levels who set the tone for an organization.

*Thoughts During Judgement.  All too often the judgement that people are wired for is “Is this an effective action (financially or otherwise) and is it legal?”  In an ethical culture, people ask “Is it the right thing to do?”  Leaders throughout an organization need to role model this as they facilitate decision-making discussions so that it will permeate the culture.

*Incentives.  Certainly, care must be taken to remove temptations to take unethical actions when creating financial incentives – especially when they will obviously set up this dynamic (the Wells Fargo “eight is great” motto comes to mind).  But leaders should also pay attention to non-financial incentives – particularly recognition and praise.  It “feels good” to work in a place where ethical values are embraced.

*Cultural Norms.  This is the bottom line of creating a strong ethical culture.  While certainly top leaders need to set the tone for this it is also vital that leaders at all levels – especially in the middle – role model the organization’s values.  This includes discussing values when making decisions, highlighting direct reports who do the “right thing,” and confronting others who violate the values.

*Hiring.  Figuring out the best person to hire is important, but this is also an opportunity to make sure people understand the culture.  Talk about the organization’s values during interviews and provide examples of how employees have role modeled those values.  Explain that your values are more than a poster on the wall.

Creating and sustaining an ethical culture is, perhaps, one of the most important responsibilities of leaders at all levels of an organization.  This takes persistent action, but the positive payoffs are immeasurable.

Epley, N. & Kumar, A.  “How to Design an Ethical Organization,” Harvard Business Review, May – June 2019, pp. 144 – 150.

The recent revelations about practices at Wells Fargo quickly come to mind.  For those not following closely, here are the highlights – or lowlights.

*Regulators found that the bank had created more than 3 million accounts that had been opened without customer knowledge.

*The impetus for all of this, evidently, was a strategy promoted by the bank’s leadership to “Go for Gr-eight” – meaning that employees should attempt to get every Wells Fargo customer to utilize at least eight of the bank’s products – mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, etc. Many employees then opened these accounts without informing the customer.

*The former CEO and other top leaders have left their jobs as a result of this.

*The front page of The Wall Street Journal this past Saturday (2/3/18) reported that the Federal Reserve was requiring the bank to replace four Board members by the end of 2018.  Outgoing Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen referred to the “Pervasive and persistent misconduct” of Wells Fargo when the discipline was imposed.

But was it Ambitious Goals that caused this – or something else?

When I discussed this topic with our University of Maryland Executive MBAs this past weekend, many of them said they thought it was more an issue of the company’s ethical culture.

Fortune magazine seems to agree, in an article based on its investigation of the Wells Fargo debacle.  The article quotes one employee who says “‘We were constantly told we would be working at McDonald’s’ for not hitting sales quotas.”  While employees were not told directly to lie or create fake accounts, they weren’t explicitly told not to.

When setting goals with a team or organization – especially ambitious goals – it is paramount that the leadership clarifies the ground rules of the pursuit of those goals.  They need to role model those behaviors as well.

What is your organization’s ethical culture?  It is worth checking in on regularly.  As Harvard professor and former Medtronic CEO Bill George says in the Fortune article, “No one can say this can’t happen to us.”

*For example: Niven, K. and Healy, C. “Susceptibility to the ‘Dark-Side’ of Goal-Setting: Does Moral Justification Influence the Effect of Goals on Ethical Behavior,” Journal of Business Ethics, (2016), 137: 115 – 127.

We know that mission, vision, and values are core to the identity of any organization.  And I often tell leaders that one of their most important responsibilities is to keep these in the forefront of their coworkers minds.  But how do you do that?

Recently, Dr. Alex Triantis – our Dean at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland – had our marketing/communications and facilities teams work together to post our Mission and Values on nice big signs at the front entrance of our building, right by the elevators.  They have been there for a while now, but the other day I realized how much I liked them there.  What better things to look at to help you focus as you begin another day at work!

Our values include:

*We do the right things the right way.

*We embrace challenges and opportunities.

*We have a collective passion for excellence.

How can you not get fired up looking at that first thing in the morning!?!

And our mission includes the phrase “We equip current and future leaders to assess complex problems and deliver innovative solutions.”  I tell our EMBAs that we expect them to be Innovative, Impact Leaders.

You can read more about our mission and values at this link.

What can you do to help keep your mission, vision, and values in the forefront of people's minds in your organization?  Big signs may not be the answer for everyone.  But there are ways – big and small – that you can help keep the importance of your Mission Impact alive for people.  You are only limited by your creativity.

There’s the basic SWOT analysis – what are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats?

And there’s . . .

Scenario Planning – let’s forecast the possible futures.

Balanced Scorecard – how can we predict future performance by tracking metrics in various operational areas?

The 7S Model of Strategy Implementation – thanks McKinsey.

And most elegantly, Porter’s Five Forces.  I don’t think I can observe an afternoon of presentations by our Executive MBAs without at least one of them working in Porter’s Five Forces.  If you don’t know them, check them out here.

As helpful as these analytical tools are, there is one thing they cannot do for you.  They cannot answer the question “Why?”  They cannot tell you “why” or “why not” you should do something.

Some of the most interesting and important questions of an individual’s or organization’s life, are “why” questions.

Why are we here?

Why is this important?

Analysis can’t tell you your values, your passion, or what you should care about.

The next time you see your team heading down a rabbit hole toward some decision to be made among uninteresting alternatives, you might ask them: “Hey guys, why again are we thinking about doing this?  Why do we care about this?  Let’s get back to the basics.”  Those can be some pretty powerful “why” questions.

Once you know “why,” then those analytical tools can be very helpful in figuring out how and what and where and when.  But if you don’t know “why,” then those really don’t matter.

*The blog title is a quote by the great Systems Thinking pioneer, Dr. Russell Ackoff.  Thanks Russ!