ENTERPRISE VALUES RESOURCES
Business Values, by Branch Bank and Trust
(originated by former Chairman John Allison
search the web site for 'culture' to find current version of document)
and by Hutchinson Technologies
“Our culture of quality, continuous improvement, superior innovation, and relentless focus on fundamentals enables us to lead in the markets we serve.”
The book How to Be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business covers the foundations of life for business and morality, and advises on how to make business decisions.
The author has also written "Why Businessmen Should Be Honest", with Edwin Locke, in the September 1995 issue of the Journal of Organizational Behaviour (John Wiley & Sons Ltd. and reprinted in the book "Why Businessmen Need Philosophy".
Bill Gates' columns Ten Attributes of a Good Employee, What Makes a Good Manager, and Long-Term Leadership Demands Candor & Consistency
Usually found on Microsoft's web site in PressPass|Bill Gates' columns (or |Past Essays).
Today they are here: (then look for links to speeches)
No one can dispute that J. Paul Getty was successful in business. Less known are his criteria for good managers: no politics, speak up if things aren't right, treat people decently. (I hope to add references to articles.)
To come: good mission and values statements. (If they walk their talk - many do not, PR people are good at writing them but it is difficult to walk well.)
Here's one with promise, from Blitz USA
Thinking Directions (training in thinking methods)
Creativity vs. Knowledge?
(Michael Hurd explains why there is no conflict, in Capitalism Magazine)
A comment on positive competition and teamwork:
Most have heard ad nauseum of the Survivors TV show, in which people play politics to get others kicked out of the tribe. But there is a positive TV show in which people use available resources to solve challenges, as a team. It is called Junkyard Wars (originally called Scrapheap Challenge). Look for it on "The Learning Channel" on US cable TV or on Britain's BBC
network.
- thanks to The Intellectual Activist of May 2001 for the tip and Engineering Times 2001 for more info.
GOOD NEWS about businesses - positive/clever/humorous
and ...... Keith at (business) work
A rational business coach in SW US
(in western Canada and NW US contact keith)
Hiring and Firing
Is your HR department human? (a tale of inappropriate behaviour).
Who hired this control freak? Another tale of misguided behaviour.
How do you as an executive or manager prevent such behaviour and deal with administrative needs on cost effective basis? Contact Keith. He or allied friends can help, perhaps for a fee, perhaps as an employee.
Negotiation - for life & business
No one can dispute that J. Paul Getty was successful in business. Less known are his criteria for good managers: no politics, speak up if things aren't right, treat people decently. (I hope to add references to articles.)
How to invest?
Advice from the very successful funds manager Wayne Deans includes evaluation of the company's management, including the CEO: ".....the single most important question is whether we trust him."
Keith comments that the opposite approach is mechanistic or theoretical, whereas Deans' approach recognizes that people make or break the company
(Tom Cable of the renowned venture capital company Cable and Howse gave their number two criteria as "Can we trust these people?". (Number one was simply "Are we interested in this type of venture?".)
and...
Why did they buy WorldCom....? It was all quite obvious what was going on, if you did your due diligence. So people got what they deserve...."
- reference Business Edge newspaper of March 18, 2004.
“The issue is not so much whether it is manual or physical labour, but whether your work demands use of your personal skills and judgement. If it doesn’t, then you’re on an assembly line no matter how starched your shirt is.” Neely Tucker paraphrasing Matt Crawford, whose broad experience includes being a bureaucrat and motorcycle mechanic.
From Mechanic with a PhD extols virtue of trades
MAKING IT WORK (a tale of an unsung hero who made a great discovery usable)
Is structure the answer to a growing company's administrative challenges?
What are the alternatives? Why did one company's try at empowering employees fail?
Also read Steve Jobs and why big companies die "In this mode, the firm is basically playing defense. Because it’s easier to milk the cash cow than to add new value, the firm not only stops playing offense: it even forgets how to play offense. The firm starts to die." But read the first comment from Thomas W Dinsmore.
(I have literally heard that, in a company that pioneered a product type, even as competition was obviously emerging.
Fortunately, creative sparks somehow kept working on a major advance of the product type, so much more was sold than if the complacent mentality had prevailed. - Keith)
Are you adding barriers to customers?
Are you a marketing professional or otherwise?
Here's a great discussion thread about the maxim "the customer is always right" including a very good suggestion that the words were originally intended for a general principle of economics not specific interactions. Buried in the thread is my comment that some businesses have the attitude that the customer is always wrong.
Intellectual property of Keith Sketchley, page version 2019.12.12
Please advise Keith if any links don't work or have become inappropriate - the Internet changes.
