I. Virtue & Talent
❝ Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. - Chinese proverb
❝ The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons - Aristotle
To be a truly successful organization, one that excels and stand the test of time, virtue as well as talent must be emphasized.
The MBM Guiding Principles articulate our rules of just conduct along with our shared values and beliefs. Enforcing general principles enables employees to challenge the particulars. To the extent that particulars are enforced, the general breaks down. Every one must internalize the core values and exemplify them in everything is done.
Principled Entrepreneurship Maximizing long-term profitability for the business by creating real value in society while always acting lawfully and with integrity.
A Culture of Virtue
Every company requires a culture that has specific attributes, something that fortunately can be actively cultivated. Set standards for evaluating policies and practices, measuring conduct, establishing norms of behavior and building the shared values that guide individual actions.
MBM Guiding Principles
Integrity
Compliance
Value Creation
Principled Entrepreneurship
Customer Focus
Knowledge
Change
Humility
Respect
Fulfillment
Developing the ability to apply these Principles routinely and instinctively to achieve results requires constant practice and reflection.
Many companies have similar principles, but fewer take systematic steps to ensure that every employee understands and is committed to thinking and acting in harmony with them. These steps are essential if such principles are to truly affect workplace culture. Otherwise, they are nothing more than empty slogans.
❝ Most companies fall short in creating a great culture in a company, where they fail, is on making it a daily habit- Alfred Lin
Steps
First step is to ensure that policies and practices lead to a culture of value creation, initiative and responsibility rather than one of bureaucracy, entitlement and unaccountability.
Second step is to strive to hire and retain only those who embrace the principles.
Third step is to provide detailed explanations of the Principles and their role, and then clearly and consistently communicate the expectation that the Principles guide employee behaviour.
Fourth step is to base advancement and compensation on how well our employees practice the Principles.
Finally, provide regular feedback, discipline and ultimately terminate employees who do not act in harmony with the Principles.
Leaders should be selected from among those employees who have demonstrated competence in the execution of these steps and are positive role models for workplace culture. Because leaders set the standard, both by how they lead and by what they do, they are the guardians of culture and are held accountable for it. To be effective, leaders must internalize and consistently apply sound principles in a way that produces results.
❝ You want diversity in skills & life experiences, but you want to be homogenous on the core values.- Brian Chesky
For MBM to be applied effectively, results must be the focus
First teach the words and concepts to all employees
Guide employees to achieve profitable results
Promote only those who can "walk the talk"
A key talent for management positions is the ability to read people and identify those who are able to apply sound principles to achieve profitable results.
What is an effective leader?
Effective leaders provide frequent and honest feedback that identifies opportunities for improvement in a way that stimulates dialogue and change.
Effective leaders hold themselves, employees, peers and management accountable for behaviour in keeping with the principles.
Leaders provide opportunities for employees who best exemplify a beneficial workplace culture. Such employees focus on core business issues, drive constructive change, innovate and achieve profitable results and growth through Principles Entrepreneurship.
Although employees are selected and retained on the basis of their values and beliefs, they must also have the necessary talent to produce results.
Virtue without the required talent does not create value. But talent without virtue is dangerous and can put the company and other employees at risk. Employees with insufficient virtue have done far more damage to companies than those with insufficient talent.
Both virtue (that is, living by the shared values and beliefs of the company) and talent (the specific skills and knowledge required to excel in a specific role) must be present.
Talents
Strive to select, rewards and provide opportunities for individuals who create or have the potential to create the most value.
A truly free society rewards people according to their individual merits, not by what group they are associated with. Similarly, organization applying MBM reward people according to their virtue and their contributions. Therefore, strive to find those who can create the most value through a diversity of perspectives, experience, knowledge and abilities.
Multiple Intelligences
This theory, developed by Howard Gardner, suggests that we each have several independent forms of intelligence. Rarely, if ever, does someone rate high or low on all of them. Each intelligence entails the capacity for learning, solving problems and creating products or services of value to others.
Gardner identified at least 8 different kinds of intelligence, each with several subtypes. However, in the MBM model, two types will be excluded, music and bodily-kinesthetics.
Interpersonal:
This intelligence is used in understanding other people, recognizing their virtue and talents, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them. It involves the ability to notice and make distinctions among other and getting them to cooperate with each other. Leaders, sales people and teaches need high degrees of this intelligence
Intra-personal:
Interpersonal intelligence turned inward. It is the capacity to continually, accurately and realistically self-assess in order to operate effectively in life. This keen awareness of one's own intelligences, motivations and feelings is critical for leaders. Those who are weak in this dimension can cause untold damage to themselves and others. This is especially true of those who become completely disconnected from self-reality.
Linguistic:
The hallmark of this intelligence is a sensitivity to the meaning of words, their order, sounds, rhythms and inflections. It includes the ability to convince others of a course of action and to communicate ideas meaningfully and effectively. It enables the use of language to learn and teach, to draw different or deeper meanings out of statements or works of others and to secure useful information by skillful questioning or discussion. These abilities are central to the effectiveness of anyone who speaks, writes, learns or challenges, such as students, teachers, leaders, speakers, authors, sales people and lawyers.
Logical-Mathematical:
The nonverbal ability to construct solutions to logical, mathematical and scientific problems, to solve problems by using measurement, logic and calculations, and to see patters. It includes the ability to determine what has happened and what may happen in different scenarios, to make economic calculations and to analyze ventures. It involves both deductive and inductive reasoning as well as discerning relationships and connections. Individuals who formulate, analyze, research, innovate, calculate or challenge need to be strong in this intelligence.
Spatial:
The kind of intelligence necessary to form a mental model of a 3-dimensional world and to maneuver and operate using that model. It involves being able to perceive the spatial world accurately, to visualize in space and to perform transformations and modifications on these perceptions. This exhibited both by those who deal directly with the spatial world, such as designers and engineers, and those who apply spatial tools in their work, such as trades and chemists who depict 3-dimensional relationships.
Naturalist:
The ability to make distinctions in the natural world between plants, animals, clouds rock formations, etc. It draws on pattern-detective capacities that enabled our ancestors to survive. It involves perceiving objects through one of the senses, making distinctions about those objects and then classifying them according to specific criteria. In the information world, this intelligence is important for those who write and reading code, build software frameworks and architecture, forensic accounting and others.
For the purpose of MBM, Gardner's model need not be exactly correct, only directionally correct. What is important is recognizing the fundamental variance among individuals.
Most employees when hired will fall into the second quadrant, however, they are expected to migrate to the first quadrant as soon as possible.
Employee Development
Both to develop the vision and to ensure the organization has the talent to make it a reality, leaders rate their employees' performance at an A, B or C level.
ABC Process
A level:
Belong to the top 15% of their peers throughout the industry in their current role. A business should ensure it doesnt lose them.
These employees' performance and contribution in their current roles provide significant competitive advantage over those employees in similar roles at principal competitors and, therefore, are exceptional contributors to long-term profitability.
Companies applying the MBM framework must constantly be in the market for A-level employees and must continually improve its ability to identify and recruit these individuals.
B level:
Belong to the top 15th and 50th percent of performers throughout the industry in their current roles. These employees' performance and contribution in their current roles have proven to be at least as good as that of their peers at principal competitors. B's are solid contributors who constantly meet expectations and who may exceed expectations in many areas of performance. B-level employees are, collectively, critical to a company's success.
C level:
These employees performance and contribution in their current roles put us at a competitive disadvantage by being below-average relative to their peers at principal competitors. C-level employees do not meet expectations. They may be in the wrong role, meaning they could contribute at a B or even an A level if they were in a role that better leveraged their comparative advantages. But if their performance cannot be improved to a B level, either by finding a suitable role or though development, they should not be retained.
The purpose of the ABC process is to determine and improve the level of talent, and to ensure that all employees are in optimum roles and contributing to profitability. The last is achieved by:
the development of existing employees
the reassignment or termination of underperforming employees
the recruitment of outstanding external talent
For a business to create value in society, its employees must create value for the business
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