April 2003

Innovation Tips

…ideas for thriving on collaborative innovation

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Bringing the Soul to Life: Values First, Profits Second

Our principle of separation between church and state seems to have also imprinted our cultures at work: We have too often built a chasm between soul-centered values and organizational management.

A chasm between spiritual loyalties and selfish purposes is at the root of corporate malfeasance recently in the news and the decisions of top management to “cook the books” for personal gain—witness the fiascoes at Enron, Global Crossing, and WorldCom.

When we put material gain ahead of deeply held values of integrity, we commit the folly of the ages. We multiply our possessions, perhaps, but lose touch with our own souls. When the accepted business ethic degenerates to one of profits first and values second, the soul of the organization is in jeopardy.

What is the value of increasing material wealth if we fail to develop an invaluable life? How does it profit the world to generate steep profits if, in so doing, we generate shallow characters?

Corporations that worship at the altar of profits and capitalized value displace much-needed attention on values. In the long term, these corporations often fail to sustain the profitability they once held so dear. Ironically, those organizations that do attend to values seem also to produce the enduring success that profit-motivated companies often can’t seem to attain.

The most stable, financially successful company in the airline industry is Southwest Airlines. Their attention has been on building a culture of love, rather than one of fear. Their levels of employee and customer satisfaction, baggage-handling records, on-time departure and arrival records, and virtually every other measure of success, are the highest in the industry.

Other airlines—like American Airlines, now struggling to stay out of bankruptcy—seem to have had their eye first on the bottom line and the personal gain of top management, and second on cultural values.

Amazon is steadily emerging as a retail giant, not because they have their eye predominantly on the bottom line but because they don’t. They are building a culture that prides itself on delivering the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.

In the end, the Enrons of the world, those that seem to put short-term profits and capitalized value ahead of all else, fail at the very objectives they had set out to accomplish, for they leave the soul of the organization behind.

The soul is the source of humility, of imagination, and of an enduring passion for life. When we bring these attributes to life in an organization, we have enlivened an enthusiasm for the work that cannot be accessed through purely material objectives.

Putting profits first and values second, if at all, can too easily pervade the culture of an enterprise. But those companies that have often done the best job of producing sustained financial success have also reversed those implicit priorities and put values first and profits second.

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