Question:
Hi, my name is Chunli Li. I am from China. My question is: How are you as companies and other organizations responding to public expectations that they fulfill their legal and ethical responsibilities? And how are leadership requirements changing regarding this issue? Thank you.
Any volunteers from our crack team here?
Answer:
Can I start, just because I want to say, I’m not an engineer. I didn’t realize that until I heard this. Let me talk to you about one of the Baldridge winners this year; a latest example, Caterpillar Financial Services. I have quite a history with them. My background was both in manufacturing, sales, marketing and general management. I spent a long time in the apparel industry to then buy and run a management recruiters organization recruiting senior legal executives; staffing many
US companies with European or other worldwide people. So you start learning the skill set; I mean that’s the issue. And for me, you’ll hear my focus is quite often on the soft sides of it as apposed to the others even though they’re all critical. But the issue having to do with business ethics is, in Caterpillar their issue, for instance, is the ethics or the ethics or the ethics or the ethics….period. That’s what it is. There’s not one set of ethics in one country and another set in another, even though they respect cultural differences, they’re all the same. So, that’s effective for leadership to all levels and it is consistent in their message both for mission vision, values and expectations is you have freedom and you have responsibility. And you are responsible for appropriate ethics. I’ll give you a real quick personal example of this because we’re now doing some work from Nicaragua down through Panama. Sometimes I can get through the border; it’s kind of like getting a passport to go from Tennessee to Virginia or North Carolina; that type of thing; you literally have to get these permission things with cars and things to make this trip and it should be no cost: Clearing customs, getting your paperwork, going through inspection, clearing customs and getting your paperwork on the other side. But, I know it’s going to take me anywhere from 20 minutes to 8 hours and I know it’s going to take me anywhere from $5 to $125 because the issue is they’ve got this site up here and this is a provided service but the ethics in different countries say I’m inspecting your car. I need to help my colleague over here. This is going to take a while. And so, that’s not my ethics. That’s not the way I’d operate, but understanding that’s the way that culture operates. So you find a way to help work with that and modify that to be effective.