Legacy & Personal Values

Posted June 20th, 2023 in Business Culture by Dr. William (Bill} DeMarco

Irrespective of whether we are princes or paupers, we all leave a legacy. As important as it may be, that legacy is less about personal estates, personal accolades, and personal accomplishments than personal values!  Legacy is all about behaving in alignment with a personal model of what good looks like and handing off its reflection to other people, places and institutions. Legacy is always a reflection of personal values and how those values live in behaviour.

Values are greatly influenced by current and past cultures. For example, we live in an era where personal values typically trump familial, societal, and institutional values. Since values are the prism through which we view the universe, hearing stories of a different time and place where people placed greater value on giving purpose to collective effort than personal goals, it is often difficult for us not to be dismissive or judgmental of the values of past generations. Frequently they just don’t fit with current ideas of what good looks like. I recently came across a story of a Canadian family of a century ago that left a powerful legacy in Ontario. As you read the article linked here, you will likely discover that the legacy of those in the story is one of bridges, highways, botanical gardens, and public works. However, you will also discover that their legacy is also about lives of personal sacrifice and giving purpose to collective effort.

It would be easy for us to dismiss the story as an example of values and customs that are out of touch with today’s realities. Maybe they are. However, this way of thinking would miss the point of the article. The article offers us an opportunity to reflect about our personal model of what good looks like against the backdrop of a bygone era.

Remember, our real values live in our behaviour.  If you want to do a reality check on your true values, ask yourself what are you willing to fight for; then check your answers against the backdrop of your behaviours. This will likely get you closer to understanding your legacy as it stands right now.

Meaningful reflections!

 Dr. Bill DeMarco

High Performing Business Culture & Values

Posted November 27th, 2022 in Business Culture, Culture & Leadership by Dr. William (Bill} DeMarco

While preparing for a client meeting many years ago, I came across the value proposition of a consulting company my client had worked with in the past. Their value proposition had a lot to do with “optimizing the performance of human capital“.   That was the first time I had heard this term.  My first instinct was to cringe a bit at the notion of treating people like capital, but, on reflection and in the spirit of full disclosure, I needed to plead guilty of using this concept in the past.  One of the ground rules of sound communications is to use language that the listener can relate to.  In the world of business, the noun “capital” is truly capital as the Brits would say!

Its use has the ability to capture the attention of business leaders so we can get to the “good stuff”.  In this case, the good stuff is to identify what’s required to bring about a high  performing business culture.  At my client meeting, we discussed about how, in my international research over the past decades, “treating people with dignity and respect” consistently correlated with sustainable high performing business cultures in a variety of business sectors and global cultures.   It is a subset of what I call “Ethical Role Modeling”.  I spoke about this on a business radio interview nearly twenty years ago.  In more recent research,  it still has resonance.

My reflections and  client conversation on the merits of  “treating people with dignity and respect” led me to a new insight.  Isn’t “treating people with dignity and respect” similar to the Golden Rule of “doing to others as you would have them do to you”?   After doing some research on world religions, I discovered that, interestingly enough, over twenty of the worlds great religions, which account for over seventy-five percent of the world’s population, espouse fundamentally the same “Golden Rule“.

I know how, in our secular society, mixing religious with business values is frowned upon. BUT , maybe there is cause for thought when businesses as well as Buddists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and other beliefs espouse fundamentally the same  core value of “high performance”.  If the key to getting along in the new and emerging global community is finding common ground, this might very well be food for thought.

Meaningful reflections!

Dr. Bill DeMarco