A gray rainy Sunday
morning in the country found me in my den, tuned into a 2010 movie called “Company
Men.” Ben Affleck, the star of the show,
finds himself the victim, at age 37 of a downsizing at his ship building company.
His boss, played by Tommy Lee Jones also gets fired, but that happens almost at
the end of the movie.
As this trauma was unfolding,
both men discover the importance of people, company values and what they want
to happen in the next phase of their life which is to build something that they
can “taste and touch and feel, not just numbers on a balance sheet. More
importantly, they both now understand the importance of human capital to any enterprise,
either on the shop floor in the accounting department.
The movie ends
with Affleck and Jones opening an office in an old ship building factory and
employing many of the people who got downsized from their old company. In the end, every viewer was, no doubt,
rooting for them to “make it.”
This led me to
thinking about company values. Yes I worked at Fortune 500 companies and heard
all about company mission statements, corporate values and how “people were the
most important asset.” Yet when the
companies had trouble navigating some stormy economic waters, I realized that, well;
these so called corporate values just couldn't stand up to the dollars…and
people were downsized, laid off, fired, outsourced and terminated. However you say it, it always sucks.
It wasn't that I was
naive, it was just that I was hoping against hope that just once, the jobs
would be saved, and the company would be smarter about researching, designing, marketing
and delivering their products and ultimately be profitable.
So here are my company values.
It’s what I
believe in and what I have tried to live by for the past 17 years of being in
business for myself. Have I been 100%
successful in keeping all these values? Probably not, but I always carried the values
with me.
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
1. If
you don’t make a profit, you can’t do any of the rest. Make the numbers.
2. It’s
not ALL for you. Give some of it back to your employees, your community and to those
less blessed than you.
3. Respect
your employees and vendors.
4. Treat
your customers with dignity. Treat them
like you would treat your grandmother.
5. Apologize
when you are wrong. It’s OK. No one will
think less of you.
6. Always
keep improving your people, products and processes.
7. Think
big.
8. Always
do the right thing…karma is a bitch!
