score 2011
DESCRIPTION
ELA's presentation to Saint Paul SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives. Focus on building trust to improve stakeholder relationships.TRANSCRIPT
Ethical Leadership
Saint Paul SCORE
August 9, 2011
“Business ethics is so…negative.”
Empower others to improve the world
Ethical Leaders in ActionLeadership Development Model
Leading
Self
Leading
Others
Leading
in Context
Learning across contexts
Among my teachers…
Thinking about stakeholders
Investors
Employees
Vendors Customers
Partners
Competitors
Environment Communities
Arms-Length
Contractual
Fiduciary
Relationships
may be
harder to
graph
than to
improve!
A More Realistic View of Stakeholder Diagrams
The Old Employment Model:“Master-Slave”
Minimally constrained by human rights.
Employment at Will is a logical evolution from this view.
Eugene Genovese’s economic conclusion: slavery didn’t pay!
(The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy
and the Society of the Slave South, 1965).
Not all
slavery
structures
were/are
the same.
The same
Is true for
employment
terms
Measuring Engagement
• Retention
• Safety
• Customer Service
• Productivity
• Profitability
Source: Gallup Q12 Summary
• Clear expectations for
performance
• Adequate materials
and equipment
• Ability to succeed
in assigned roles
• A supervisor who cares about subordinates
• Co-workers committed to quality work
• Opportunities to learn and grow
Source: Gallup Q12 Summary
Employee Engagement Drivers
We are most likely to trust and
co-operate with individuals and
systems - whether we win or
lose - when we experience fair
process.
“Process”
includes
anything
from
giving
feedback to
a single FF
to setting
departmental
strategy
Kim & Mauborgne, Harvard Business Review, July – August 1997
Why think about “Fair Process?”
• Engagement– Stakeholders invited to participate
– Participants have an opportunity to be heard
• Explanation– Process and rationale are clearly explained, along with
decisions and outcomes.
– Explanation is respectful – it is also often educational.
• Expectation Clarity– When decisions are made, implications for all
stakeholders are clearly articulated.
– Everyone knows what to expect, and what is expected
of them.
Fair
Process is
working
WITH
others
The Three Elements of Fair Process
Fair Process does not mean:
• Democracy
• Consensus
• Happiness or Contentment
• Accommodation of individual wishes
or whims
• Command relinquishing legitimate
decision authority or accountability
• Just being nice
A good indication of a fair process is when people who do not
“get their way” understand why and how a decision was made,
and acknowledge that the process was fair.
• Maintain control by keeping
employee’s at arms length.
• Substitute memos and forms
for direct, two-way
communication.
• Avoid challenges to their ideas
and authority.
• Believe that knowledge is
power and retain power by
keeping what they know to
themselves.
• Deliberately leave the rules for
success and failure vague.
The Misuse of Power
Customer Expectations and Commitments
• What should our
customers expect from
us?
• Do we communicate
about those
expectations?
• How do we hold
ourselves accountable?
• How do we respond
when problems arise?
“Even if two customers are buying the same
product, they may want totally different
services wrapped around it.”
– VP, Customer Service,
semiconductor firm
Challenge: engaging vendors
• What should your clients expect from their vendors?
• What should vendors expect of them?
• What do basic, healthy relationships look like?
• What about shared-destiny, strategic relationships?
Ethical Dimensions of Competitors
• Ethical Duties:
– Comply with laws
– Refrain from manipulating legal/regulatory processes
• Competition can expand markets and validate
customer desire
• Competition can drive innovation, discipline, and
efficiency.
• Defeating competitors is an easy surrogate for the
pursuit of excellence.
The oldest leadership seminar
• Safety and comfort
• Tactical information
• Problem-solving
• Strategic decisions
• Who are we???
If we
aren’t
telling
stories,
others
surely
are!
Thank you for your attention!
Chad Weinstein
Ethical Leaders in Action, LLC
651-646-1512
“We enable ethical leaders to achieve
extraordinary results”