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By adopting the traditional values of honesty and integrity in a business, employees will feel part of the team, encouraging loyalty. This will enable you to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Research has shown that employees stay with companies because their owners are honest, viewing honesty and integrity as more important than their job description or compensation.
Although the concepts of honesty and integrity are obviously not new, the application of these traits in the new business environment is. Research shows that employees regularly complain that firms tend to delegate more and more in order to achieve better short-term margins. When conditions deteriorate as the margins vanish, ownership calls a firm like us to pinpoint the problems and advise a cure.
Although the cure is painful, it is a motivator until conditions improve. Often, the first sign of terminal business illness is employees taking out their feeling of exploitation on customers. The customers then perceive the business to be rude, incompetent and micromanaged. The values that ownership expresses are undoubtedly filtered through the employees, and so customers are likely to go elsewhere. The businesses that do nothing about this will eventually die. Most businesses that give lip service and attempt half-hearted measures never reach their potential. More and more resources are needed to keep the business going resulting in all becoming bitter, including the customers.
Improvement is temporary; as financial crisis is avoided, the business finds a comfort zone and the cycle repeats itself. These kinds of businesses are in a constant struggle to maintain the status quo. By insisting on micromanaged exploitation owners prove to have little perspective for any other strategy. A mediocre business can be many things but never successful. Our standards and expectations are lowered when we see business leaders lying, cheating and being generally manipulative.
Honesty and integrity are old values that have existed as concepts ever since we have socially understood them. Even though new business markets have changed is does not mean that our values of the past have. Deception is easier in the short-term but a lot trickier in the long-term. Proper use of these values can successfully position a company at the forefront of a market. |
