Core Ideology

I recently had the book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras recommended to me by a business colleague as a must-read. One of the guiding principals throughout the book, which uses what the authors label as "visionary companies" as examples throughout the book, is that in order to set your organization apart from the competition, you must clearly identify your organization's "core ideology." While this is detailed out at great length in the book, I walked away asking myself the following questions in order to get to the answer for our business. What are the fundamental items that make up your organizational DNA? What are the underlying guiding principals of your company that will not waver in the face of economic or financial issues? Here are the results of our discussions:

• Do what is best for our customers.
• Be honest and ethical at all times.
• Develop our future leaders and promote from within.
• Have high expectations and a low tolerance for poor performance.
• Run lean while maintaining a high level of fiscal responsibility.

Our original list of items was about 30 deep. We had to go through a series of eliminations as well as discussions among some of our key folks in order to chunk this list down to the five aforementioned items. While we are still in the refinement process of ensuring this is truly "the" list for our organization, I feel compelled to share what we find through this process and share my own thoughts with you along the way.

You could even do this from a personal standpoint. Ask yourself the same questions about your own person and you can identify your self-core ideology. Pretty interesting. If you are an entrepreneur, you could even incorporate your self-core into your business core. What a great way to keep your passion for your business alive and well.

What I like the most about this exercise is that makes it pretty easy to streamline the decision making process. If something goes against your core, you do not pursue it. While we all live in a business climate of healthy change, it is important for businesses to know why it is that they exist beyond the underlying concept of making money. If you want to build a "visionary company" as Collins and Porras mention in their book you have to exist for a "purpose beyond profit." This will provide for a much more "clear vision and sense of direction" while maintaining a "pragmatic pursuit of profit."

The next step in this process is for us to identify our core purpose as an organization. On the surface this seems pretty easy. We shall see, as I plan to open the issue up for discussion among some of our leadership folks here at The Employment Guide.

While I find these exercises especially intriguing as I just finished reading the book, I also see a great benefit in taking our leadership team through the BTL process. So far, we have benefited from the depth of the discussions and have a clearer sense of direction or vision for our organization.

Did you come up with a list of three to five items that make up your own personal core ideology? If so did you encounter any surprises?

Thanks for your time.

Jeff Littlejohn