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MINDING OUR OWN BUSINESS February 1, 2003 by Linda Hirvonen Delta County EDA The key concept that kept rising to the surface of our planning discussions for the Delta Force Leadership Reconnaissance Mission, which kicked off last weekend, was ethics. Whether one is leading a business, a city or commission, a family, or a charitable organization, the ethics involved are paramount. Businesses of all sizes are suffering fallout from the ethical flaws of the leaders of such giants as Enron and WorldCom. Unfortunately, the unethical leadership of the few has served to solidify a wrongly held stereotype that this is “typical” of the business owner or manager (as “them” in the “us against them” that devolves between workers and managers or between customers and suppliers when times get tough- which they certainly are right now). The Kiplinger Tax Letter of October 11, 2002 listed what they considered to be the fundamentals of ethical business. They are presented here for consideration as readers contemplate their own set of business ethic basics: • Setting reasonable performance goals for officers and employees. It is Kiplinger’s contention that pressure to achieve “unnatural results” is what caused a lot of the recent problems in large growth companies. • Balancing the interests of owners and employees. The obvious is that “belt tightening” applies equally to everyone- from owners/managers to stockholders to workers. But understanding the interests and needs of the other could be said for both sides of the us-them continuum. It certainly brings to mind two concepts from last Saturday’s Delta Force workshop: 1) in order to effect change, you must start where the other is (whether it is understanding their position or needs or perspective or learning style). The art of motivating involves changing your strategy to effect change, not doing/saying the same thing louder or more often. And 2) nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood. • Dealing squarely with your vendors, especially in tough times. Many small businesses get crushed in this one- they tend to be running pretty lean in the first place, so when their customers squeeze cash flow by delaying or shorting payments to their vendors, these small businesses are forced to do the same to their vendors- creating a swirling downward cycle. The other side of this is dropping a longtime quality vendor for a few pennies. In the end, it’s a risky strategy at best. • Maintaining honest relations with your customers. In times of uncertainty and stress, it’s easy to forget why we’re successful in business in the first place- by listening to our customers, filling their needs with consistently high quality at a fair price, and never trying to pull one over on them. Tough times and increasing “fixed” expenses like insurances make it tougher to follow these principles of success at a profit, but violating them will sacrifice the long term for the very short term. Reputation takes a long time to build, but no time to knock down. In Delta Force we talked about understanding all of the dimensions of the big picture and choosing what is best for the whole among many other considerations. But no matter how you define them, ethics, quality, reliability and integrity are essential in an effective leader...and in running a successful business. |
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