Guiding Principles Introduction

Even with our outstanding organizational clarity as embodied in our:

• Goal of Crossing the Chasm (both Options and Kleen-Tech profitably grow to $100M in annual sales by the end of 2013)
• Purpose (The continuous quest for EXCELLENCE in all we do)
• Three primary Objectives (Growth, Prosperity and Excellence); and
•  Very well thought out and detailed 2010 Strategic Plan comprised of our Enterprise, Team and Departmental Initiatives

…we are still regularly confronted with the lack of a clear understanding of who we are, how we got here and how we do things. This lack of understanding is demonstrated periodically by our:

• Operational entities when they seem to get “off – track”, act inconsistently with our reputation, stray from the course, are unable to accomplish their commitments or compromise our service quality;
• Support functions that have new staff members that have trouble “getting up-to-speed” and contributing, or begin to contribute quickly, however their contributions are inconsistent with our standards, priorities, values, ethics, established practices, procedures, systems or methods;
• Leadership Teams, when decisions are inconsistent or unclear and cause re-work, confusion or delay, and allow negativity to creep back into our work environment.

It is with these situations in mind that we set about on a course to discover and document our Guiding Principles.

Guiding Principles are the foundational beliefs that steer us in all circumstances, regardless of changes in our goals, strategies, type of work, management or leadership, key players or turnover of personnel. It’s how we ensure we stay true to who we are as an organization. It’s how our new employees get up-to-speed quickly. Guiding Principles serve as a basis of reasoning and action, a personal code of conduct that leads, shows the way and directs our movements from day-to-day decision-making to service delivery.

Companies that demonstrate the ability to sustain momentum all have established down-to-earth sets of Guiding Principles to help them make decision much better and faster. Only one question needs to be asked of any proposed course of action:

Does this fit our guiding principles?

The following Guiding Principles reflect our collective views on the way we conduct our business and pursue our purpose.

•  We know it’s all about the people.
• We cherish our culture of employee development, dialogue, inclusion and fun.
• We continuously develop our functional teams in a creative and transparent work environment focused on Enterprise results.
• We can be counted on.
• We lead through great questions, great listening, great communication and great facilitation.
• We compete for no other reason and in no other way than by being the best.

A set of Guiding Principles has value and makes you better and faster only when you do the things the principles imply. Over the next 6 months/newsletters, I’ll go into detail on each of these Guiding Principles and provide examples of their positive application.

 You, our employees, remain our Enterprise’s most valuable asset and we thank you for your valuable contributions to our continued success!

Guiding Principle #1: We Know It’s All About The People

In last month’s article I shared our six Guiding Principles, and promised to dedicate my next six From the President articles to talk about each of these in more detail. This month we’ll discuss the first of our six Guiding Principles – We Know It’s All About The People.

As we are confronted with issues, problems, successes, concerns, challenges and opportunities, it is most often our natural reaction to look at every facet of the situation except – the people. For some reason that I can’t explain, it is simply human nature for us to first look at the process, procedure, policy, environment, paperwork, system – to look at the situation from every conceivable angle before, or even if we ever get to, looking at the people. I don’t know why that is, but we would all be better served by remembering and first looking at – our people.

To look at our people in these situations, there are many directions that we can take to determine the impact of our people on the situation, and to specifically figure out which people we need to look at within and outside of our organization. Is it the service delivery employee, the support employee, the supervisor, the customer, the manager, the supplier’s representative, the consumer – all of these are our people and we would be best served to look first at all of these people as we are confronted with these situations and determine the “people group” most directly involved in and responsible for the situation.

Once we identify the people with the highest degree of impact – what it is about these people that is most important to this situation. Is it their alignment with our purpose? Is it their proficiency in terms of training or experience? Is it their schedule or priorities? Is it their personality or tenacity? Is it the specific tasks they’ve been assigned or the frequency of those tasks? Is it their attitude, motivation or their understanding or sharing of our purpose or guiding principles? All of these situations turn out better when we have properly recognized the people and the things about these people that are positively or negatively contributing to the situation.

So, the next time that you are confronted with a situation, be it positive, negative or neutral, take a moment to put the people as your first consideration. Recognize and reward those people for the positive situations and help those responsible for the less than positive situations, because really… It’s All About The People!

 A set of Guiding Principles has value and makes you better and faster only when you do the things the principles imply. Next month I’ll speak to our second guiding principle – We cherish our culture of employee development, dialogue, inclusion and fun.

You, our employees, remain our Enterprise’s most valuable asset and we thank you for your valuable contributions to our continued success!

Guiding Principle #2: We Cherish Our Culture of Employee Development, Dialogue, Inclusion and Fun

Last month, I shared with you our first Guiding Principle – We Know It’s All About The People. Our second Guiding Principle is We Cherish Our Culture of Employee Development, Dialogue, Inclusion and Fun.

This Guiding Principle focuses on our positive work environment. Employee development, dialogue, inclusion and fun – that’s a lot of stuff. Let’s talk about each of them separately.

 In terms of employee development, we’ve always been that way. When it comes down to choosing between two candidates for a position, one with the right attitude and the other with the right skills, we always “choose the tude”. We believe we can teach the skills and provide the requisite experience to those that have the right attitude and willingness to learn. We also look first within our Enterprise family to identify employees that are ready for advancement opportunity. Our robust use of training programs and our leadership team’s development retreats are examples of our strong commitment to employee development.

I bet you’ve never worked at a place where there is more dialogue. We recognize that the Enterprise’s best ideas come from you. And that age old adage “two heads are better than one” is one that we strongly believe in and use to encourage “the conversation”. You see this in the 1^st and 2^nd steps (identify the standard; and advocate for the standard) in our Four Steps To Your Success program, as well as the 2^nd dysfunction (fear of [productive] conflict) in Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team model that we use on a daily basis. In these and many other ways we strongly encourage you to take a stand, develop a position, come up with an idea, and then go out to your peers, subordinates and supervisors and pitch it, get their perspective, and be open to modifying your approach based on their valuable input.

Nothing better demonstrates inclusion than what we call our “organizational clarity”, which is comprised of our Enterprise goal, purpose, primary objectives and these guiding principles. All of these fundamental aspects of our Enterprise were “discovered” – not “determined”. It would have been most expeditious for me or your ELT, DLT or TILTs to decide who we want to be and how we will conduct ourselves. Instead, we went about surveying a broad cross-section of our employees, or in some cases all of our employees to “discover” these guiding principles and our other foundational characteristics and objectives.

And then finally, fun. You spend way too much time at work not to have a good time doing this. Not every minute of every day, I know we do some tough stuff that it isn’t always fun, but generally speaking we should have an orientation toward making our work fun. So if you’re not having a good time here, you should definitely do something about it by either taking the initiative to make it fun for yourself and your co-workers or find some other type of work that you can make fun. It will make your days go by much faster and make you a better person for your family and friends when you leave work. Make it fun – you deserve it!

 A set of Guiding Principles has value and makes you better only when you do the things the principles imply. Next month I’ll speak to the third of our six Guiding Principle – We Continuously Develop Our Functional Teams in a Creative and Transparent Work Environment Focused on Enterprise Results.

 You, our employees, remain our Enterprise’s most valuable asset and we thank you for your valuable contributions to our continued success!

Guiding Principle #3: We continuously develop our functional teams in a creative and transparent work environment focused on Enterprise results.

Last month, I shared with you the second of our six Guiding Principles – We Cherish Our Culture of Employee Development, Dialogue, Inclusion and Fun.  This month I’d like to discuss our third Guiding Principle, which is We Continuously Develop Our Functional Teams In A Creative And Transparent Work Environment Focused On Enterprise Results.  To do this I’ll focus on four key precepts – Team Development, Creativity, Transparency and Results.

Team Development – I counted them up the other day (I know… you’re thinking “this guy has too much time on his hands” J) – we have 32 formalized teams in our Enterprise, not including a couple committees and a few task forces.  Each of these teams participate in various levels of team development, primarily centered around Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team model wherein we strive toward these Five Signs of a Functional Team:

• TRUST – Enough to tell you what I’m really thinking; and for you to tell me what’s really going on with you
• CONFLICT – I don’t need another opinion that’s just like the one I already have
• COMMITMENT – Specifically what I’ll do by when – written down, suspensed, publicly made known
• ACCOUNTABILITY – If it’s in jeopardy, I’ll raise the flag and count on you to question my approach
• RESULTS – Does this contribute to the mission? Am I committing to some phase of it or to work on it – or am I committing to accomplish the desired end result?

Creativity – Each of our teams has an appointed facilitator.  Most, and eventually all, of our facilitators have been specifically trained to encourage our teams’ creativity through productive conflict and insisting on team members’ accountability through the robust questioning of each others’ approach.  We know the very best ideas are still out there and in your head – we just need to create an environment that encourages you to express them and for them to be objectively considered by your team.

Transparency – Of all the many components of our six Guiding Principles, TRANSPARENCY I believe is the single most determining factor in how successful you will be working here.  I see it time and time again.  Those that are open with their thought processes, status, challenges and failures, as much as their successes, seem to flourish in our environment.  Those that you see whispering in the hallway, not participating in the meeting, never know what exactly they’re working on, when they’ll be finished, what they’re struggling with, when you’ll get that from them, or even generally how they’re doing – just don’t seem to hang around long.  Remember in Math Class when you had to “show your work” by attaching all your hand scribbled calculations so your teacher could see how you arrived at your answer?  It was a bit annoying, I agree, but I think they might have been on to something there.

Results – Well, we talked about this above as the fifth sign of a functional team, however let me add that there is only one true measure of a successful team, company or enterprise and that is the degree to which it accomplishes what it sets out to achieve – RESULTS!

A set of Guiding Principles has value and makes you better only when you do the things the principles imply.   Next month I’ll speak to the fourth of our six Guiding Principles – We Can Be Counted On.

You, our employees, remain our Enterprise’s most precious asset and we thank you for your valuable contributions to our continued success!

Guiding Principle #4: We can be counted on.

Last month, I shared with you the third of our six Guiding Principles – We continuously develop our functional teams in a creative and transparent work environment focused on Enterprise results and described the precepts of Team Development, Creativity, Transparency and Results. 

This month I’d like to share with you our fourth Guiding Principle, which is We Can Be Counted On.  It’s short and sweet, however it efficiently states a key characteristic that separates us from most companies—our commitment and our accountability.  I’m going to elaborate on these two elements that are critical to a functional team, as well as explain how we take ownership, how we do what we say we will do and how we hold ourselves accountable.

Commitment – I touched on this 3rd dysfunction of Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team model last month, “specifically what I’ll do by when – written down, suspensed, publicly made known.”   I won’t allow the wiggle room of subjectivity; instead I’ll provide my team with a realistic date and time of when I will get it done. We are all connected in the Enterprise, your coworkers and team members are depending on you to meet your commitments so they can complete their own related commitments to other employees. 

Accountability – This 4th dysfunction of Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team model is demonstrated as “if my commitment is in jeopardy, I’ll raise the flag and count on you to question my approach.”  This questioning of your approach creates an environment wherein we can be counted on.  Ask yourself and your co-workers – what could I have done differently to have met my original commitment, or even how could I have structured my original commitment differently that would have ensured it’s on-time and on-target completion.  It’s holding yourself, as well as your team, accountable for commitments and it starts with you. 

We take ownership.  We all own our daily activities.  Whether it’s wiping down the tables, ensuring our consumers are taking the proper medications or making sure our customers’ calls are being completed according to schedule. You may not be the sole person to accomplish these tasks however it is something that you are tasked to ensure gets accomplished.  So, as the “owner”, you coordinate your work and resources to make sure your areas of responsibility are completed according to the standard. 

We do what we say we will do.  When a friend tells you they’ll pick you up from the airport on a certain day and specific time, you expect to see them there.  They committed to a date and time, and when that day comes, and they’re not there, what do you say to them when you talk to them next?  You ask them where they were, right?  You hold them accountable for their commitment, although what happens the next time you need to be picked up at the airport, are they the one you call?  They’re probably not, because they didn’t meet your expectation.  We want to be the one that our customers call every time, and earn that trust by doing what we say we’ll do.

Our relationship with our customers is much like a friendship, which is why we make sure everyone is clear of our expectation and WE are clear of THEIR expectations of us.  A common phrase around here is, “you can’t meet my expectations unless I let you know what they are.”  When our responsibilities have not been clearly defined, then we end up not meeting the expectation, and worse, we may not even know that we didn’t meet them. When we get clear on our commitments and do what we say we will do, we build trust with our customer and our co-workers.

We hold ourselves accountable.  We understand that there will be situations when a task falls through the cracks or something came up that we didn’t anticipate when we made a commitment.  This is why we “raise the flag” and make everyone aware of the situation and explain why we weren’t able to meet our original commitment. By sharing our experience with a focus on immediate fix, root cause and irreversible corrective action, we actually strengthen our team and our commitment.

Our partnerships with our customers, stakeholders, coworkers, managers and subordinates are much like friendships, they count on us just as much as we count on them.  When you say, “you can count on me” to a friend, you know what that means, and this Guiding Principle isn’t any different.  We build a trust through our commitments and accountability with one another.  Our family of employees and customers understand that things might not be perfect, and they trust us—count on us, to make things right.

We do what we say we’ll do!

A set of Guiding Principles has value and makes you better only when you do the things the principles imply.   Next month I’ll speak to the fifth of our six Guiding Principles – We lead through great questions, great listening, great communication and great facilitation.

You, our employees, remain our Enterprise’s most precious asset and we thank you for your valuable contributions to our continued success!

Guiding Principle #5: We lead through great questions, great listening, great communication and great facilitation.

Last month we discussed the fourth of our six Guiding Principles – We Can Be Counted On. In that article I highlighted the importance of Commitment and Accountability, and described what it means to take ownership, do what we say we will do and to hold ourselves accountable.   

This month I’d like to share with you our fifth Guiding Principle, We lead through great questions, great listening, great communication and great facilitation. This Guiding Principle is the “Captain” of all our Guiding Principles. We could know it’s all about the people (Guiding Principle #1); working in a wonderful work environment (Guiding Principle #2); while encouraging an open, creative, transparent and dialogue-filled team-based approach (Guiding Principle #3); doing what we say we’ll do (Guiding Principle #4); and successfully competing only by being the very best (Guiding Principle #6); but if these Guiding Principles are the ship, then #5 is the Captain, leading not with a heavy hand or barking loud orders, but through Great Questions, Great Listening, Great Communication and Great Facilitation ensuring we stay on course toward our Goal, Purpose and Objectives.

As mentioned in our third Guiding Principle, each of our teams has an appointed facilitator that has been specifically trained to promote team creativity through productive conflict and encouraging team member commitment and accountability via the robust questioning of each others’ approach.  We know the very best ideas are still out there and in your head, which is why our leaders are trained to ask “great” questions and implement “active” listening to encourage each of us to create the “right” answers.

What are considered “great” questions? – “Great” questions bring out the very best in and develop our people – “great employees have all the right answers – great leaders ask all the right questions”. Questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no” are good ones; questions that get at the heart of “who we’re being” vs. “what we’re doing” are “great”. For example, when you go to your supervisor and ask her, “how do you want me to do this?”, does she reply by telling you exactly what to do or how to do it, or does she instead ask you “what alternatives have you considered?”, “what is your recommendation and why?”, “what’s the impact of the alternatives you’ve considered?”, “how do we get the biggest bang for this buck?” or “how does your recommendation align with our Guiding Principles?”.

 What does it mean to be a “great” listener? – Whether you’re an evolutionist or a creationist, don’t you think that the human body would have two mouths and one ear if it was more important to speak than to listen?  Think back to a moment when you were talking to someone who was really listening. You knew they weren’t just half-listening. You knew they weren’t thinking of something else when listening to you. You had the feeling that their total focus and concentration was squarely on the ideas you were expressing. You just knew they were listening 100% through their follow-up questions, restating for clarity something that you said and asking for clarification.  How did that make you feel?

 To effectively listen is to truly engage and focus only on the message of the person you are listening to. We’ve all had a boss that asks us a question but has already determined the answer.  A true “listener” doesn’t think of what they are going to say next or how to counter your viewpoint before you’ve even finished your thought, they simply engage. Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone and after you’ve concluded your message there’s a silence?  You see them processing what you’ve said and finding a meaning without immediately commenting before you get your last word out, that’s a great listener.

 Why do we emphasize “great” communication – Great communication is about sharing our organizational clarity—who we are, how we got here and what we’re all about. We constantly represent who we are in the most simple and routine ways like smiling at tenants in a building we’re cleaning or ensuring our consumers are enjoying the lunch we prepared for them. These actions communicate to our customers and onlookers what’s important to us.  Other examples of communication include my Welcome from the President presentation for all new overhead staff, this monthly HB Headlines newsletter that is distributed to all of our locations, and through our many Corporate Communications messaging (Broad Audience Communications).

 We’re all “leaders” at some point in our work-day, at home, in our social, hobby or other interests – so when we lead, let’s do it with a focus on asking great questions, followed by great listening to the answers that we receive, great communication, sharing and encouraging of everyone’s thoughts, ideas and perspectives and great facilitation of robust and truly meaningful conversations!

 A set of Guiding Principles has value and makes you better only when you do the things the principles imply.   How and when can you be a great leader?  Next month I look forward to discussing the last of our Guiding Principles – We compete for no other reason and in no other way than by being the best.

You, our employees, remain our Enterprise’s most precious asset and we thank you for your valuable contributions to our continued success!

Guiding Principle #6: We compete for no other reason and in no other way than by being the Best.

Last month we examined the fifth of our six Guiding Principles – We Lead through great questions, great listening, great communication and great facilitation. I discussed how our 5^th Guiding Principle was the Captain, to the other five Guiding Principles, leading through Great Questions, Great Listening, Great Communication and Great Facilitation ensuring we stay on course toward our Goal, Purpose and Objectives.

This month I’d like to share with you our sixth and final Guiding Principle, We compete for no other reason and in no other way than by being the best. Competition can be a little self-serving.  Individual competitions typically include a winner and a bunch of losers.  Even in team competitions, although there is more camaraderie and each team member’s goal is to contribute to the win for the  benefit of all members of the team, it is still at the expense of the other team(s) that have not won, and the sole benefactor of this competition is the winning team.

Our Guiding Principle is not – win at any expense; or compete to ensure we decimate the competition.  Our Guiding Principle is about competing and winning to the single and solitary benefit of our customers by being the very best at what we do.  Now all of a sudden this “competition” takes on a new definition, meaning and purpose.  Yes, we compete – and yes, we want to win – but for no other reason and in no other way than by being exclusively focused on being the very best in the eyes of our customers, for it is our customers that win or lose from this competition based on the quality of our service delivery.  This Guiding Principle is directly related to our three Primary Objectives of EXCELLENCE, Prosperity, and Growth.

Excellence through Teams – We achieve EXCELLENCE in everything we do. This is how we continuously compete, we have the passion and drive to be the very best for our customers. It is important that our employees share that same drive, and embrace our vision of EXCELLENCE. We don’t ask our employees to come to work everyday just to complete their tasks, get their paycheck and go home. We ask you to improve your skills, develop and continue to grow as the company grows.

By doing this, we remain ever vigilant in meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations and thereby draw and include more members (customers and the employees to support them) to our team.

Here are some of the ways our Enterprise demonstrates EXCELLENCE:

• Following our six Guiding Principles (hiring the right people; developing our employees and creating an environment of trust; continuously developing our teams; holding each other accountable by questioning each other’s approaches; by employing efficient and effective leaders; and by remaining focused on being the best)
• Weekly Leadership Calls - ensure issues are rapidly identified and worked to final fruition with an ever-present focus on the desired end result; and our Corporate support departments are “plugged in” and readily available to provide assistance to their internal and external customers
• Using The Four Steps to Your Success, relentlessly advocating for standard identification, and raising the flag when a standard appears to be in jeopardy
• Implementation of our Listen-Act culture through surveying both our employees and customers to ensure we really truly know what “best” is to internal and external customers
• Constant distribution of communication focusing on organization clarity through our newsletters, broad audience communications and corporate communications

Live Long and Prosper - As a prosperous Enterprise, our shareholders continue to view us as an attractive investment and keep their money in our businesses. Through our continuous quest for EXCELLENCE, we remain prosperous and pave a successful path for our Enterprise.

Our Enterprise must be profitable and prosperous to successfully:

• Manage our costs
• Finance our growth objective,
• Pay for systems upgrades and additional staff
• Reward our talented employees through monetary recognition and promotion

We are the Champions - One of our 2010 Strategic Issues focuses on growth for both Kleen-Tech and Options. This goes hand-in-hand with our sixth Guiding Principle—we grow by being the best.

• Growth ensures we continue improving our infrastructure through enhancing our services and supporting systems
• Growth expands our Enterprise family by attracting new and retaining our existing customers and developing our workforce and hiring highly qualified individuals to support them
• Growth provides our employees with career advancement and promotion opportunities
• Financial growth helps sustain our Enterprise, allowing us to endure our economy’s ebbs and flows, which is critical to successfully “Crossing the Chasm.”

So now, to survive and grow, and with our customers as the potential winners, we must compete – for no other reason and in no other way than by being the very best at what we do.  Of paramount importance is the creation of fantastic customer relationships so we always maintain a clear understanding of what “the best” really means to them.  And then to contribute to our winning team you must continuously hone your skills and through our continuous quest for EXCELLENCE remain vigilant in identifying and implementing the most efficient and effective methods to deliver the highest levels of service quality – be your best!

A set of Guiding Principles has value and makes you better only when you do the things the principles imply. Let’s compete, on a daily basis, to deliver the very best service quality to our customers. Now that we’ve gone through all six of our Guiding Principles, next month I’ll begin to share with you the details of our 2011 Strategic Plan.  Your Enterprise, Departmental, and Tactical Implementation Leadership Teams have really raised the bar this year in crafting next year’s strategic plan, and I’m excited to share with you some of their accomplishment.

You, our employees, remain our Enterprise’s most precious asset and we thank you for your valuable contributions to our continued success!