Penn Sate, and Libor, and… – What does Your Organization Truly Value?

By definition, every organization is “values driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?
Gary Hamel, What Matters Now

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Let’s think about what organizations value.  We’d best start with this:  what does your organization value?  Make sure you know the answer to that question.  Everything depends on it.

And, there’s a pretty good chance that what your organization says they value may not be what they really value.

Here’s the story.

At Penn State, an assistant coach raped a boy – a young boy.
So far, you can only blame this assistant coach.  It is sad; tragic.  But only one person is at fault; only one person is to be blamed.
But then, somebody found about it, and told someone else.  A handful of people learned about this.
They did not take the logical, appropriate, human, humane action.
Now, it is the fault of a very flawed system – a genuine, massive failure of organizational values; and the fault of a group of people, not one person.
The coach then raped other boys.  After someone told somebody else about it.

And now, even after the former director of the FBI issued his report, there are many who say, “no – I don’t believe the findings of the report.  And, the punishment is unfair, too harsh.  We didn’t do enough wrong to warrant that punishment.”

Because, we are in a national, maybe international, state of denial.  “Things are not that bad.  There are only the stories of an occasional bad apple here and there.”

Don’t kid yourself.  There are too many stories of these bad apples, in too many organizations, to consider these isolated incidences anymore.

And in each case, it boils down to this:

This is what we value here:  _________.  And we value this more than anything else.  Nothing else matters as much as this thing that we supremely value.  So, if some kind of wrongdoing is done that might threaten our success fulfilling this thing that we supremely value, we will ignore it, hide it, be intentionally blind to it, because what we value is far more important than this bad thing that was done by some bad apple.

At Penn State, it is hard to know what to put in that “this is what we value” blank.  Did Penn State value football supremely?  Thus, they placed Joe Paterno on a gigantic, pedestal, because he delivered the football product they supremely valued?  Did Penn State value the prestige, and the money, that such a football program brought to their school?  If so, then it was “right” to put a picture of Coach Paterno on campus with a halo over his head, and a statue that so many made a pilgrimage to to show honor to the great  man who represented, who successfully “fulfilled,” their supreme value.

Here, take a look at this picture – the one with the halo.  Think about what it means.  It is, in fact, exactly the picture that should be prominent on this campus.  He represented success in what this school supremely valued.  (Yes, I know that the artist placed the the halo over his head after his death, and pretty quickly painted over the halo as the scandal became so public..  But, I’m describing a “values-honoring symbolism,” as personified in this so very great man to this university – thus, the halo was an appropriate symbol of this man, at this university, with these values).

with halo; then halo painted over

a look at the larger painting

I think they should have left the picture with the halo up, and left the statue up.  Because, in listening to the rants and rage of the people objecting to the NCAA punishment, they still place their supreme value in the same place.  “We did not deserve this punishment” is the cry.  But, in fact, they did.  Because they had all placed their supreme value in the wrong place.  And the punishment is not just for what Sandusky did, and others covered up – it is an indictment of a system with such misplaced values.

And, of course, for the NCAA to punish such “values” just drips with irony.  The NCAA is filled with schools that place this sport pretty close to the “supreme value” level.  And many of these schools make decisions that are not quite good for all so that their prestige and their profits and their reputation about their great football program can be protected.

At Penn State, something mattered more, something was valued more, than the safety of young boys.  It was “okay” to turn one’s back to an assistant coach raping additional boys, because they did not value the safety of those boys as much as they valued something else.

You cannot value two things supremely.  There is room for only one top value in the value hierarchy.

{Of course, I find this despicable.  Why should football and prestige ever have that supreme value slot in an institution of higher learning?  And, I think the actions of Paterno, and others, deserve absolute condemnation.  But, this blog post is an attempt to ask, “what did Penn State supremely value?”  And, then, “what does my, and your, organization supremely value?”}

The Libor scandal is the same story.  (And Enron, and BP, and….).  Yes, I agree that the rape of young boys is far more despicable than overcharging for credit. But there is a parallel — what do these banks value?  You know, the ones which set the interest rates to their advantage – actually, on some days, to the advantage of a small group of “buddies” who asked their buddies to set the rates to maximize their own bonuses.  Whatever they do value, they did not value the best interest of their end customers – the people who had to make the mortgage payments.  They put their own interest above the interest of the people they “served.”

And, they got away with it as long as they could.

As did News Corp with their phone hacking.

As did Penn State with their cover-up – even if it meant that additonal young boys were going to be raped.

As did…

No, the problem is not Penn State, or Libor, or Enron, or…  The crisis is not a few bad apples.  The crisis is deeper that that.  It is a values crisis.  It is a “what we supremely value trumps any other concerns” crisis.

And, I think every customer on the planet should start asking of every store and organization and university “what do you supremely value here in this organization?’’  And then we need to demand honest answers.

Remember Gary Hamel’s clear statement of fact, and warning:

By definition, every organization is “values driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?

How to Know When to Give Up On a Goal

 

Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.

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Setting goals and sticking to them is important. But you should also occasionally reevaluate your goals.

Quitting isn’t fun, but sometimes it’s necessary.

Here are two warning signs that it might be time to abandon your goal:

•  Your goals have adverse consequences. If you’ve committed to going to the gym every morning but find that you’re too tired to be productive the rest of the day, something needs to give. In these cases, adjust the goal itself or at least how you go about achieving it.

•  Your goals impede other objectives. Most people have several goals — getting healthy, spending time with family, making more sales calls, etc. If one of your goals is preventing you from reaching another one, decide which is more important.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “When to Give Up on Your Goals” by Dorie Clark.

To read that article and join the discussion, please click here.

Also, you may wish to check out Management Tips from Harvard Business Review by clicking here.

Analytics on Demand

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Eugene Burke for Talent Management magazine. To check out all the resources and sign up for a free subscription to the TM and/or Chief Learning Officer magazines published by MedfiaTec, please click here.

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The right talent analytics could be a game-changer for companies that understand the importance of workforce data and how to apply it to get bottom-line results.

A critical question facing HR today is whether an organization’s talent plan is appropriately aligned with business initiatives. Organizations typically invest significant amounts of time and money into third-party HR outsourcing firms to get consultative feedback on their workforce alignment. The practice often left them scratching their heads as to what to do next. On-demand talent analytics could make the aforementioned costly and debatably effective approach a thing of the past.

Using on-demand software technology will enable companies to answer big questions at the organizational level. By comparing assessment data on their workforce against a benchmark of literally tens of millions of data points across the global workforce, organizations can learn:

•  If their employment brand is competitive.
•  Whether they are attracting the right candidates.
•  Which recruiting sources are delivering the best candidates.
•  Whether any of their teams are likely to put their business at risk.
•  If they have the right talent on board to take them where they need to go.

Being able to address concerns like these requires the right talent analytics. These analytics could be a game-changer for companies that understand the importance of their workforce data and how to apply that intelligence to get the bottom-line results they desire.

Talent analytics become even more powerful when used throughout the full human resource management system. For instance, say a customer service center is falling behind in customer satisfaction. With talent analytics, companies can pull workforce information from the applicant tracking system and compare it against assessed candidates and employees to determine which recruiting sources provide the best performers. Further, by hooking into learning management system training modules, companies can improve and re-train customer satisfaction skills for under-performing employees. When talent leaders can compare workforce information against an accurate, historical database of global workforce intelligence, organizations may even decide to choose a different, more talent-rich location for new facilities — one more closely aligned with the skill and competency strengths the organization looks for.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Eugene Burke is the chief science and analytics officer at the Society for Human Resource Management. He can be reached there.

How to Drive Turnover Down Among Your Company’s Most Valuable Employees

Here is a brief excerpt from an article written by Adrienne Fox for the website of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM).  To read the complete article, check out other resources, and sign up for email alerts, please click here.

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Data reveal causes and patterns that help you enhance retention.

Employers haven’t had to worry much about turnover during the past four years—two years of a Great Recession followed by two years of a jobless, anemic economic recovery. Voluntary turnover rates decrease as unemployment rises. In January 2009, when the unemployment rate passed 7.5 percent, the number of nonfarm employees voluntarily quitting their jobs sank to 2 million from 3.5 million in January 2001, when the unemployment rate was just above 4 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The quit rate has remained low since 2009 as employees hunkered down, many thankful to have jobs. Executives “say they’re not worried about turnover right now because their turnover is low … because there’s nowhere else for people to go,” explains David Allen, SPHR, professor of management at the University of Memphis.

That’s beginning to change. In May, the U.S. unemployment rate stood at 8.2 percent, a decrease from a year earlier. As the labor market opens up, HR professionals may face a turnover crisis.

The length and depth of this economic downturn has researchers predicting massive turnover in the near future. A whopping 84 percent of employees said they planned to search for a new job in 2012, according to a November 2011 online survey of more than 1,000 people in the United States and Canada by Right Management.

The results of an October 2011 Mercer survey were significant but not as startling. The percentage of workers seriously considering leaving their organizations jumped from 23 percent in 2005 to 32 percent in 2010, according to the survey of nearly 30,000 workers in 17 geographic markets, including more than 2,400 U.S. workers.

Already, 34 percent of HR and hiring managers have reported that voluntary turnover at their organizations rose in 2011, according to CareerBuilder’s 2012 U.S. Job Forecast report, which was based on a survey conducted by Harris Interactive. The desire for higher compensation and feeling overworked were the top reasons employees gave for resigning in the survey of more than 3,000 hiring managers and HR professionals across industries and company sizes. Thirty percent of employers said they lost top performers in 2011, and

43 percent said they were concerned that top talent could jump ship in 2012.

“We have pent-up turnover because of the jobless economy,” Allen says. HR professionals have “to work now to tweak the employee experience so that they will stay and be engaged. You need to know who is at risk and how to retain them.”

Tracking, dissecting and predicting turnover can keep your organization from falling victim to the predicted wave of exiting employees.

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To read the complete article please click here.

Adrienne Fox, a contributing editor and former managing editor of HR Magazine, is based in Alexandria, Va.