thing happens with the basic values of an efficiently-operating corporate culture. Universal values, no matter how they are correlated to the corporate values communicated, will always top the list of those that shape a company’s corporate culture. And honesty will always be the very first on that list. Therefore, it is obvious that although we are not able to foresee everything, we can rest assured in our knowledge that care for trust, honesty and integrity – as exemplified by the leader at every step – will be a good investment as far as risk management is concerned. An organisation that is honest, ethical and open will build internal trust, and in the process become more reliable and mitigate risks – whether these are posed by the industry it operates in or by the financial services it relies upon. The value of trust is especially felt when this value is found lacking, when it becomes apparent that a certain threshold of efficiency cannot be reached due to lack of trust. Voicing the values
Value-based management is a relatively new approach to management. It is connected to searching for the most effective and efficient management of an organisation in a reality that is becoming more and more unpredictable. The 20th century ended with the key managerial challenges being the standard of goal-setting and the
In uncertain times, values may serve as a stabilising agent, a foundation that helps the company to get through change, transformation, crisis, or dynamic growth perfection of task coordination, and in the 21st century, as we increase our understanding of the value of the relationships in business, the main challenges involve setting up alliances, self-aware ecosystems, and collaboration protocols (a theory that has been recognised in the Nobel Prize for Economics awarded in 2009 to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson).
Coordination is becoming increasingly difficult in a world of “fluid modernity” (Zygmunt Bauman). When constant change becomes the new standard for which a new generation of managers should be prepared, it is shared values and joint aims that enable successful cooperation. The main task currently faced by the managers is not coordination but cooperation, and this is only going to be possible based on well-recognised shared values. We do not need scientific equipment to gauge the popularity of declarations of values, the increasingly common cases of self-regulation, and the codification of corporate value-systems that are transparent to both employees and society. Such documents turn our attention onto the ethical side of running a business; they undertake to integrate employees around the cardinal values of the organisation, using the platform of an ‘ethical code’. This, however, raises the spectre of the bureaucratisation of ethics. However, if the code of ethics is conscientiously used as one of the tools of value-based management, and if it is drawn up with the participation of the employees, or at least their leaders, then such a predicament alienating the team from its rules, is not really on the cards. In fact, such codifications – ethical standards that are universal for a given community and guarantee work conditions that support the entire organisation – are exactly
Rationalisation abilities
The Prism of Wisdom
A wise manager is competent in an objective, rational reading and analysis of data to enable the required quality of business decisions. The directors saw analytic abilities, data processing, fact-based actions, rationality and managing the entirety of the information available as closely related to the managerial brand of decision-making.
Intuition
Character
Our character is shaped by our values and the things we believe in. It is closely tied to the “internal world” within every one of us. As a human being we are required to balance our own good with the good of others, i.e. the greater good or the general good. This also means being consistent in our actions, showing care and empathy towards others. Adam Smith termed this phenomenon ‘sympathy’. According to a Russian managing director: “A wise man is a kind person, not a saint, but with high morals and personal values focused on the other person – more focused on listening than on talking.”
Fig. 2
According to two Chinese directors: “Information, knowledge and a rational approach are useless, or at least insufficient.” The strength of intuition allows the processing of the available data and increases efficiency, leading to wiser decisions. Many respondents defined wisdom as far-sightedness. In the words of a director of a British toy chain, wisdom is: “The ability to foresee how current events will play out in the future and taking the decisions appropriate for these forecasts.”
nr 1 czerwiec / June 2013
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