LEADERSHIP & CULTURAL-VALUES AT BLACK & DECKER

Values become a powerful influence when used as a performance tool—rather than a cosmetic facade to enhance annual reports or adorn lobby walls.  My years of coaching Fortune CEO’s involved complex change initiatives.  Few of the programs that Achieve delivered, impacted bottom-line performance as dramatically or consistently as this cultural-values/ethics platform intervention.

I was asked to facilitate a values clarification session for Nolan Archibald (CEO of Black & Decker) and his team of international presidents.  The process used was expressed initially in my book, The “I” of the Hurricane: Creating Corporate Energy and recently in my E-book, Securing Corporate Viability and Creating Transferable wealth.  The session was a huge success because the hard-nosed production executives sensed their newfound capacity to balance inspiration and discipline.

The CEO (also a lay-bishop in the Mormon Church) stated in his concluding remarks, “now that we’ve clarified our cultural values, I can for the first time, explicitly and pragmatically bring my faith to work—without feeling that I’m imposing my beliefs on others”.  The output of that three hour session quickly reached critical mass in B&D sites around the world and helped them build a solid foundation for a Total Quality transformation.  In my opinion, and that of many clients, never before has so little produced so much.