Managing By Values By Ken Blanchard and Michael O'Connor (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1997)
Reviewed by Stephen Randall, Ph.D.
Part of this review originally appeared in the The Networker in April, 1997.
The main point of this book seems to be: "When aligned around shared values and united in a common purpose, ordinary people accomplish extraordinary results and give their organization a competitive edge." (p. 144)
This belief that a focus on values leads to excellence is a departure from many studies on excellence that focus on results--volume, profit, return on investment or assets, and the like. How did the authors' different perspective come about? "The more we investigated this concept of 'excellence,' the more we questioned its definition. . . . The practices that had produced the best results from the sixties through the eighties would not be effective in the nineties and beyond. . . . So we began to focus on "the foundation of an effective organization--namely, its mission and its values." (p. 3)
Besides this adaptation to the demands of new times, a second, more fundamental argument--related to the 'zone' of peak performance--is offered for focusing on values rather than results. "Jack Cunningham [the book's guru consultant] . . . asked us what kind of performance we thought tennis players would have if instead of keeping both eyes on the ball, they always had an eye on the scoreboard. . . . Lots of companies seem to watch only their scoreboard--the bottom line. In doing so, they take their eyes off the ball--their relationships with people. That gets them out of the zone and invites long-term disaster. (p. 49)
This is clearly another important point of the book (even though the 'zone' cannot be defined in terms of relationships--isn't there a zone for solo sports?).
Do the authors explain why this focus on values works? "It's values that align people, that get them all committed to working for common goals." (p. 38) And going even farther, they say that this emphasis is necessary for survival: "Today most people agree that unless companies continually demonstrate their commitment, not only to profit but to business values like honesty, integrity, fairness, and cooperation, they are in big trouble. . . . The basis for a Fortunate 500 organization [noted for "the quality of service available to its customers and the quality of life accessible to its employees"] is Managing By Values." p. 26
Emphasis on values differs from the typical managerial authority: "In Managing By Values, we say that the real 'boss' is the company's adopted values. That's the authority we all must serve." (p. 54) And management cannot forcibly or hurriedly switch over to MBV. "You may engineer things to look different on the outside, but real change doesn't happen until it happens inside people, in the way they take in and react to situations." (p. 130) "It takes about two or three years for this change process to really start taking hold and yielding consistent business returns." (p. 31)
The book outlines a process to implement the idea that values should be shared, with personal goals aligned with company values, but I don't think the text's primary example of values resulting from this process would be magnetizing for employees. Why? Let me first give my definition of the kind of value that can align people so they produce extraordinary results: an inherently positive quality, something desirable in and of itself. Now consider the book's primary example of a company's values: "1. Be ethical. 2. Be responsive. 3. Be profitable." (p. 45) "Be responsive" is the only one of these three injunctions that resembles a value. "Be ethical" is so general it's almost useless as a guideline. "Be profitable" is a goal, and an injunction to produce value defined as "estimated material or monetary worth." However, profit is not *something desirable in and of itself,* which--in my opinion--is the only kind of shared value that aligns people so they produce extraordinary results. Why not determine carefully how corporate goals are related to real shared values, such as caring for other people? This is actually done to some extent in a second example on pp. 114-7, which uses the values integrity, success, and service.
Despite this issue about the books' primary example, Managing
By Values adds to the growing literature that is shifting
corporate America's emphasis on the bottom line toward a recognition
of values not just as an end in themselves, but also as
perhaps the best means for producing results in the workplace.
Copyright © 1997 by Steve Randall, Ph.D.
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