San Diego Daily Transcript News Story
Martha's conviction: Are women executives held to a different standard of values?
By Kenneth Majer
Monday, March 8, 2004

With Martha Stewart's conviction, the government made its point: Don't lie to federal investigators. Yet, was her conviction influenced by the fact that she is a woman?
In addressing corporate audiences and conducting seminars on values-based leadership, I have been asked if I think women leaders have different values than their male counterparts. My conclusion has always been the same: Corporate leaders are influenced more by their roles than by gender.
The question is, "Do women business leaders rely on a different set of values to influence and guide others than men do?" An interesting corollary question is, "Are women judged by the same values or ethical standards as men?"
We conducted a survey among women business leaders across America and the women TEC chairs who coach them. While this was not a controlled scientific study, it did provide interesting perspectives.
When asked if the personal values of women in executive positions were "in sync" with workplace values, answers indicated that many women are in conflict with personal values and career values. However, it was also suggested that strong leaders, male and female alike, do carry their personal values into the workplace. Those who are charitable in life encourage charitable activities in the workplace; "drivers" in their personal lives tend to drive their businesses.
Are men's values more in sync with business values than women's? Responses suggested that stereotypic behaviors dominate the corporate scene. Work values, even to the detriment of family values, seem acceptable to men but not to women. Moreover, the corporate machinery supports these values for men, but not necessarily for women. Clearly these observations cannot be generalized to everyone, but the stereotypes persist.
Another interesting issue about corporate values is whether people believe in them and live by them. Of the women we polled, about one-half said their companies had published values or that the values were evident, even if not published. Others agreed that values were talked about, but not communicated effectively. Those who emphasized values-based business planning, including using organizational values to grow their companies, felt they were at the cutting edge.
There is no question that our survey participants believe that women spend more time concerned about these issues and that they juggle their values more than men do. One suggested this as a cause for the rise in stress-related health issues for women. This corroborates the notion that those women who focus on getting the job done, reaching goals, striving for more, making it better and being the best, do so at the risk of not considering what they believe in (their values).
Do companies run by men have different values than those run by women? Women leaders provided a mixed review. While emphasizing the importance of leadership style in how a company is run, the respondents believed that women leaders are more relationship-oriented and thereby more skilled at connectedness, consensus and buy-in. Women seem more concerned with peoples' feelings. Men, they said, are more concerned with financial results and success while women may be more concerned with "doing the right thing."
American companies will change with more women in leadership. Then, say these leading businesswomen, there will be more listening to customers, employees and each other. Because women are generally more collaborative, more risk adverse, less competitive by nature and they tend to network on multiple levels, they will better understand the demands of differing roles. The result may lead to a diminished focus on financial results at the expense of employee or customer satisfaction.
One caveat: until our society changes its mind in a fundamental way about what is important and what constitutes success, things will remain relatively the same.
Overall, Enron, WorldCom and other business failures have prompted a deeper discussion. People are "talking" corporate values although they still may be "playing" at the old corporate game. It may take years to actualize a broad-scale cultural change, but women may be a significant factor because, in the past, the old values left them out of the game altogether.
Finally, what about Stewart? Opinion ranged across the board about whether the media have treated her less or more fairly than they have treated men. Some, from personal experience, think that she is an arrogant woman who treated her employees poorly and that these people are happy to see her brought down. One respondent even suggested that, deep down, Stewart is hated for reminding women that they compromise their values all the time.
Others said that she is being singled out as an example because she is a high-ranking woman and, unfortunately, the media creates sensation about high-profile individuals, both women and men.
What can we conclude from this? One conclusion is that I think I have changed my mind. I've thought that my point of view was gender-free. Upon reflection, I think there may very well be significant changes in American business with increasing numbers of talented women moving into leadership roles.
Some of the possibilities are quite encouraging. Perhaps a focus on women's traditional values, for example, may help to remove the pressures for quarterly earnings that contributed to accounting fabrications that destroyed solid businesses.
The key to this positive change is simple. Each of us, men and women alike, needs to renounce unethical business practices and replace them with values-based behaviors. Look inside yourself and rediscover those ideals and values that are intrinsically meaningful to you. Then, don't lose sight of them. Live them at work and in your personal life, and encourage others to do the same. That's all it will take to rekindle ethical standards in America.
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Majer is president of MajerStrategies Inc.; a San Diego Chair of TEC, an international organization of CEOs; and a policy adviser to the Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs at the University of San Diego. His new book, "Values-Based Leadership: A Revolutionary Approach to Business Success and Personal Prosperity," is available at www.majervalues.com.

San Diego Daily Transcript News Story
It's time for a New Year's revolution!
By Kenneth Majer ,
Monday, January 12, 2004


In the film "Network," Howard Beale shouts his famous line, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" The flashbacks and repetition of his plea and the culmination of his murder on live TV ingrained his entreaty in our minds and in our lexicon for years to come. It still resonates because, from time to time, we feel the frustrations of bureaucracy, unfair treatment, information overload and endless voicemail loops that don't answer our questions and keep us from talking to a live person. All of this is part of being alive in our technology-driven society, where individual conveniences are sacrificed to help our ever-changing, free-market world work.But where do we draw the line? When do inconvenience and frustration become oppression? Revolt against intolerable oppression is also a part of being in a free society. The American Revolution came about partly because of intolerance for taxation without representation. In France, divisions in French society and lack of representation for the people in government caused their momentous revolution. Even in nonpolitical revolutions, e.g., the Industrial Revolution, it can be argued that change was due to oppressive restrictions about how to work. We found hand labor to be intolerable when our minds conceived of machines to relieve us of oppressive and toilsome tasks.In 2003, we faced an extraordinary number of oppressive actions by people in leadership positions in American business. We need only to remember Tyco, ImClone, WorldCom, Andersen, HealthSouth, Adelphia and Enron to get mad as hell and not want to take it anymore.But this is a new year and Americans have an indomitable, positive spirit. In 2004, we have an opportunity to move beyond the oppressions that characterized the past few years. Enough is enough! We are not going to sit back and let American business leaders treat shareholders, customers, employees and the public with impunity. It is not OK to lie about income. It is not OK to cook the books. It is not OK to falsify audits or destroy documents under subpoena. It is not OK to have outrageous golden parachutes and executive compensation plans when stock prices are plummeting and a company teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.Join me in the 2004 Values-Based Leadership Revolution! Together, we can make a difference. We can set our sights higher and make our vision clearer. We can align our companies around a set of core values that define ethical behaviors and set expectations for performance. We can build our business processes and practices around what we truly believe to be important and the right thing to do. We can avoid the traps of greed, blind obedience to unscrupulous management and oppressive power by instilling a sense of right and wrong at the corporate level.How can we move this mountain? It is really simple. Become a Values-Based Leader -- those who guide or influence others to base their actions on intrinsically desirable ideals.Here is how you can become a values-based leader:Step 1. Recognize the oppression of unethical business practices and denounce those practices. State your position clearly: insist that you will not take it any more. Enough is enough!Step 2. Spread the word. Be diligent, be persistent. Explain that you are not going to tolerate lying, cheating or corruption.Consider this: Convince just two people today to state their values and live them in their personal and business lives. Engage those two to convince just two others to do the same, and so on. We will create our values-based revolution.It's simple mathematics. If two people each convince two more people each day that they should state their values and live by them, we will create a geometric progression. Keep it up for just a few weeks and we can change the hearts and minds of many people. Can you imagine the impact of convincing tens of thousands to demand ethically based business practices based on solid personal values?Step 3. Re-establish core values. Exercise your values-based leadership role and develop a set of core values and a values-based vision for your company.Step 4. Translate your values into business processes and performance expectations.Step 5. Recognize and reward those who live by the company values. Create a zero tolerance for those who do not meet your expectations. Hire and fire based on adherence to the values and ethics you set for the company.2004 can be the happiest of times for American business by denouncing unethical business practices and embracing the principles of values-based leadership. Join the revolution! Happy New Year!

San Diego Daily Transcript News Story
Values-based businesses: How does your company stack up?
By Kenneth Majer
Monday, November 3, 2003

Martha Stewart. Enron. Health care. Sammy Sosa's cork baseball bat. San Diego's City Council scandal. Is there evidence of weapons of mass destruction? Priests and kids. Drive-by shootings. Gang wars. Dot-coms selling "cyber vapor."
Just what has happened to America's values?

There is little doubt that America is in a values crisis. This may not be new, but it certainly seems to be pervasive in the first few years of the new millennium. Everywhere you look there are more and more disclosures and indictments of prominent, well-known, and not so well-known people.

I can't begin to solve all of America's ills that surely have roots in government, families and every other public and private institution. Role models for values-based living need to be everywhere and people in every element of our society must join the revolution if we are going to recover our values in America.

The first step is to ask yourself whether the organization you work for has a strong set of values. The second step is to determine if the values of your workplace are in sync with your own personal values. If they aren't, you may have an important decision to make.

Answer the following questions about your company, organization or place of work. If you conclude you are not working for a values-based company, or you decide the company values are incompatible with your own, you may find this to be a personal wake-up call.

Values-based quiz

1. Does your company have a published set of values? Score 2 for yes, 1 for not sure, 0 for no.

2. Can you state your company's values off the top of your head? Score 2 if you can, 1 if you can remember some of them and 0 if you can't remember any of them or if the company does not have a list of stated values.

3. In your company, would employees fib or tell a "white lie" to make a sale? Score 2 for never, 1 if sometimes and 0 if yes, most of the time.

4. Do your top executives "talk the talk" and "walk the walk?" In other words, does your leadership do as they say and act the way they expect you to act? Score 2 for yes, 1 for sometimes, 0 for no.

5. Do people in your company (A) always provide full disclosure -- even if it means it would negatively affect the bottom line, (B) sometimes omit information that might get in the way of making money or a sale, or (C) do whatever it takes to close a deal? Score 2 for A, 1 for B and 0 for C.

6. Do people in your company communicate openly and share information or do they horde information to the point that some people in the company wonder just what is going on or where the company is going? Score 2 for open, clear communication, 1 for some open communications and 0 if people really don't know what's going on.

7. Is your company a fun, invigorating place to work? Score 2 for yes, 1 for sometimes, 0 for no.

8. Do people in your company feel they are all pulling together and working on the same team? For example, do they pitch in and help each other during busy times or times of crisis? Score 2 for yes, 1 if you can say "for the most part" and 0 for poor teamwork.

9. Do people in your company show respect and common courtesy for each other? Score 2 for yes, 1 for mostly, 0 for lack of respect.

10. Can you count on people in your company to follow through every time on commitments they make? Score 2 for yes, 1 for sometimes, 0 for can't count on them.

11. Do people in your company have a passion for their work (a "fire in the belly")? Score 2 for yes, 1 if some people are passionate about their work, 0 for little or no passion for their work.

12. Are employees in your company actively encouraged to spend time with family and contribute to the community, even to the point of taking time off for those activities? Score 2 for yes, 1 for encouraged, but not rewarded for doing so, 0 for no talk or support in the company about the importance of outside interests.

If your score is 19 to 24 (and no individual score is zero), you are probably working for a company that has a strong sense of some of the following values: honesty, integrity, open communication, balanced life, respect, reliability, teamwork and fairness.

If your score was 18 or less, or if any individual answer produced a zero score, you may wish to look a little more closely at the organization where you spend over half of your waking hours.

If you are feeling out of sync with your workplace, what can you do about it? Perhaps you will want to begin your own movement in your company to align how people act in the workplace with a strong set of values. Or, it just may be that you now have some reason to consider whether or not your company is the best place for you.

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Majer is president of MajerStrategies Inc., and his new book, "Values-Based Leadership: A Revolutionary Approach to Business Success and Personal Prosperity," will be released later this month. Visit www.majervalues.com or e-mail kenneth.majer@sddt.com.

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San Diego Daily Transcript News Story

Core values of successful companies
By Kenneth Majer
Monday, September 29, 2003

In today's world, we need not go far to find examples of the loss of personal values and the unethical behavior that results. Whether it involves cheating in college, colossal business failures or corruption in politics, the evidence seems clear: people have lost their sense of personal values.

Leaders of these organizations and institutions set the tone for failure. And, by the same token, leaders of successful organizations such as Southwest Airlines, State Farm Insurance and sometimes little known but very profitable companies set the tone for success. They live by their values and model them every day, setting the ethical tone for their companies.

There is no single set of values for every successful organization. Values reflect individual leaders and form the basis for aligning management and the work force. Values create the culture. Values-based leaders build company personalities that are as varied as the people who lead them.

After consulting with all types of companies and organizations large and small for over 30 years, however, I've found six values that stand out among successful companies. Not all profitable companies live by all of them, and some companies have others, but establishing some combination of these six will go a long way toward building a well-run and ethical company: clear communications, integrity, humility, learning, balance and family.

In "Values-Based Leadership," my book to be released later this month about how values can build business success and personal prosperity, CEO Robb Reinhart faces a problem that is uncovered in an employee survey: Productivity and morale are down because the people who work in his company have no clue as to where the company is going or why. Lesson one: Clear communications among all levels of employees is the foundation for aligning a work force with the vision and mission of the organization. Withholding information -- the opposite of clear communications -- creates suspicion and confusion, destroying teamwork and leading to low productivity.

The second powerful value, integrity, simply means you do what you say you are going to do. You "talk the talk and walk the walk." Leaders with high integrity model what they expect in others; they don't ask their employees to do what they themselves would not do. The opposite of integrity -- dishonesty -- creates distrust and that can lead to infighting and poor relations with customers.

In "Why Smart Executives Fail," Sydney Finkelstein suggests one of the key attributes of unsuccessful executives is that they think they have all the answers and therefore needn't learn anything new. Business failures are replete with examples of arrogance and narrow-mindedness.

Successful enterprises, those with leaders who truly exercise humility -- the next important value -- are vibrant because these leaders surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are. The key is for your team to "know it all," not for you to be a know-it-all.

The fourth value is learning. Its opposite is rigidity, which leads to stagnation. If "that's the way we've always done it around here" is the prevailing sentiment among management, be careful -- you are about to be blindsided by the 21st century. Being flexible and adapting to change is what learning is all about and, more than ever, the only thing that won't change is change itself. Support learning environments to ensure your company does not become an artifact of history.

Consider balance. "All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy" is still true, though the adage is decades old. The lessons of play applied to work (and visa versa) can introduce creativity and "out of the box" thinking that is essential to solving problems in a new world largely brought about by advances in technology. In addition, the value of balancing fun with work creates an environment that attracts the best and the brightest. Other positive results include contributions to the community, and networking contacts that can lead to better business relationships, as well as broader points of view. "Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success," chronicles just how important it is to balance work with fun.

For this list, our last value is family. Family power can mean that no matter how important our work might be, family comes first. It can also mean we treat each other with the same love and caring we commit to our most important relationships. It can mean when push comes to shove, we don't let each other down. Whatever your interpretation of family, it means our company is run with the same set of values that define our most important American institution.

Now, how can that be bad for business?

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San Diego Union
July 24, 2003 page B-9 Editorial
The Quiet Revolution: Recovering America's Values
By Dr. Kenneth Majer

Revolutions erupt in times of oppression when living conditions, economic circumstances, or governments become intolerable. Revolutions are ground swell movements that occur when people won’t allow their core values to be violated any longer .

Today, the news is full of allegations that prominent people and corporate leaders are unethical or worse. We often shake our heads, and say, “What in the world could they have been thinking?”

Many of us despair at hearing about more of Martha Stewart, sexual abuse, Enron, Andersen and even Sammy Souza’s cork-filled baseball bat. That is why there is a movement afoot—A Revolution to Recover America’s Values.

Values define our beliefs, our attitudes, and ultimately our behavior. This values-based revolution rejects those who violate our fundamental values. It’s happening. The evidence is mounting that unethical actions will not be tolerated. For example, Coca Cola’s president apologized recently to Burger King for the fountain-rigging episode and, in the wake of an SEC investigation accusing Coke of discrimination, Coke’s president said that their actions were “wrong and inconsistent with the values of the Coca Cola company.”

Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops are a year into the rigors of implementing the “no tolerance” Policy for sexual abuse in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

While these institutional proclamations and legislative actions are bell weathers, it is perhaps most important to recognize that the values-based revolution is the responsibility of individuals like you and me. This grass roots movement requires introspection and the rediscovery, or recovery, of our own individual values and the relentless commitment to living a life consistent with them.

I’ve argued that revolutions occur when enough people say, “Enough!” When the behavior of others violates our sensibilities and sufficient numbers of us band together under the banner of no tolerance, the revolution begins.

But consider an additional, perhaps more subtle, component to this values-based movement: the Quiet Revolution within ourselves. I contend that many of us are painfully awakened by the sensational stories about ethics erosion because in our own hearts sometimes we, too, are out of sync with our values.

When we are in sync and consistent with our values, we are at peace. When we are not, we become distressed.

Is it as simple as that? I believe so. The real revolution, therefore, the Quiet Revolution, is our mission to rediscover our personal values—and to live them. Here is a three-step process to meet that challenge.

Step One. Ask yourself some introspective questions. What do you love to do when you are not working?

How would you spend your time if suddenly you could do whatever you wanted to do? Then probe a little deeper.

Why do you love what you have described? What is it about what you have uncovered that is so important?

What does it suggest about the values that are most important to you?

If you love to walk on the beach to get away from the everyday tension of work, perhaps you value balance in life. Or, maybe this communion with nature suggests a spiritual value. If you love to run marathons, you may value health, competition, or personal challenge

Recently, I asked these types of questions of an executive who answered that he loved to drive his Porsche when he was not working. In less than two minutes, we had determined that risk taking was one of his fundamental values. I suggested, and he agreed, that he is probably a risk taker in business as well as when he was racing around the track. He agreed. We then went on to have a fruitful discussion about applying values in business to make ethical decisions.

Ask yourself these same questions. You may uncover honesty, integrity, competitiveness, or even “fun.” Just uncover a few. That will be plenty to start. Write them down. Now, you've begun.

Step Two. For each of your personal values, decide on one single action you will take today that will demonstrate your commitment to that value. What positive step will you take today to be cheerful to others, if friendliness is one of your values? If you identified integrity, what action will you take at work today to model this value? Decide on a few values-based actions, write them down, and record your results.

Step Three. Here is your real challenge. As a person engaged in this Quiet Revolution, you have just committed to discover your values and take related actions. But the movement won’t grow unless we engage others. So here is the simple solution: Ask just two people each day, “What do you love to do when you’re not working?” Take it from there; you'll inspire two people each day to re-discover and commit to living their values. Then share with them this three-step process for living a life in sync.

Join the Revolution. Recover America’s Values.


Dr. Kenneth Majer is an author/speaker on the topic of Values-Based Leadership and a San Diego Chair of The Executive Committee (TEC), a worldwide Member organization of CEOs. He works with business leaders and senior executives to help them align their companies around core values to improve business performance. Visit his website at www.majerstrategies.com.