Price Pritchett is a business advisor, speaker, and author specializing in mergers, culture, and organizational change.
Too much attention on problems kills our faith in possibilities.
If you become a giver, you'll make them feel like they want to reciprocate.
Narrow life down to what's precious and necessary. In a world of complexity the best weapon is simplicity.
Ethical dilemmas have a way of sneaking up on a person. If something smells funny, stay away from it. Or help get rid of it.
Trust is the glue that holds relationships together.
But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence.
If you're experiencing no anxiety or discomfort, the risk you're taking probably isn't worthy of you. The only risks that aren't a little scary are the ones you've outgrown.
We all faced painful ethical challenges before we even knew how to spell our names. There were tough choices. Tradeoffs. Confusing signals regarding how to live one's life. And here we are now, today, still struggling. Still trying to sort things out. Still trying to work our way through life effectively. About the only thing that has changed is the scope of the problem. There's more at stake now. And we're in a position, as grownups, to do a lot more-good or bad-for ourselves, our organization, our world. But we still must wrestle with our imperfect ethics.
The question is, when so many others cut corners, shave the truth, self-deal, believe in the fast buck, and follow the crowd along the low road of least resistance, can we even afford to travel the high road of ethical behavior? Frankly, we can't afford anything else. Any other competitive angle is a pure crapshoot in today's business world. Companies with shaky ethics and shabby standards will be crippled as they try to compete in our changing world.
When you hold out for high standards, people are impressed-but they don't always like you for it. Not everybody will be on your side in your struggle to do what's right and ethical. In fact, sometimes even you won't be on your side. You'll wrestle with inner conflict, torn between what you should do and what you want to do. You'll also aggravate other people. Seems when you walk the straight and narrow you always step on someone's toes. Don't count on the ethics of excellence to make you popular.
So let your deepest desires direct your aim. Set your sights far above the 'reasonable' target. The power of purpose is profound only if you have a desire that stirs the heart.
We can't achieve excellence through talent alone. Or merely by making technological improvements. We can't even buy our way to excellence, no matter how much money we have available to spend. More dollars will never do it. We have to develop a strong corporate conscience. Ethical muscle. And that doesn't happen by accident either.
Until I test the limits to what I can achieve, I won't really know how well I can do.
Most people confuse wishing and wanting with pursuing. You must place your trust in action.
We can't win the struggle for high standards if we just talk a good game. . . we've got to play a good game.
The only way we can develop muscle is through regular exercise. As soon as we stop stretching and working toward higher ethics, our standards start to sag. The muscle gets soft, and instead of excellence we have to settle for mediocrity. Maybe something even worse.
The legal system doesn't always serve as a good guide for your conscience. You can step way over the ethical line and still be inside the law. The same thing goes for rules, policies and procedures - you know, the organization's "internal laws. " You can "go by the book" and still behave unethically. Still not move beyond mediocrity. High standards-the ethics of excellence-come to life through your basic values, your character, integrity and honesty. Obeying the law is the bare minimum.
Pay attention to the voice within. . . . Sometimes the voice of your conscience gets drowned out by crowd noise or by the pep rally of temptations. And your mind may put some selfish spin on the ball, rationalizing that it's okay to veer away from the ethical route. When we run into conflicts between ethical "shoulds" and our selfish "wants," we all argure out ways to con our conscience. But take pains to listen, because it has your best interests at heart.
How can we be trusted with big things if we're not trustworthy with things that are small? Don't allow your finer instincts to become a casualty of the little everyday crimes of ethical compromise.
Give people, including yourself, clear permission to make mistakes. . . and to fix the problems. Since nobody's perfect, mistakes should be allowed. Cover-ups shouldn't. Cover-ups create twice the trouble.