7 Questions

In a CNN interview to promote his new book, Isadore Sharp, founder of the Four Seasons hotel chain, talked about how he developed the company’s mission statement after sitting in on a training session at McDonald’s and realizing that their training literature hadn’t changed in 20 years -

It occurred to me that if you have something that people can understand, identify with, you don’t have to change it. That’s when I thought that we would use the Golden Rule as the basis for creating our mission statement.

You can read the full text of the interview here.

To read the Four Seasons mission statement, click here

If you treat your employees as you would want to treated (or as you would want your wife, kids, parents, etc. to be treated), most employment cases would never be filed - John Hyman

The above is an excerpt from Ohio Employer’s Law Blog. Hyman calls it the “Golden Rule of Employment Relations”.

I am always interested in finding references to the Golden Rule outside of “religion”. For me, the Golden Rule represents the tool for living out our ethics and ideals in all aspects of our lives. That has to include our work lives or it means nothing.

In Hyman’s article he references yet another employment lawyer. The focus of the article is to offer employers advice on how to avoid lawsuits from employees.

That motive should not seem self serving. The Golden Rule isn’t intended to turn us into money-losing doormats. Business still exists to both provide service to its customers and make a profit for its owners and shareholders. But Mutuality means that cause and effect are never separated.

If a manager follows the concept of the Golden Rule appropriately, they cannot help but serve the customer, employees and employer, and in the process benefit all.

Subversive isn’t it?

Business consultant Bev Smallwood of Magnetic Workplaces, in an article titled Don’t Misinterpret the Golden Rule, points out that it takes more than putting ourselves in an employee’s situation to effectively motivate and retain staff.

Ms. Smallwood’s article uses the Golden Rule to make her point. In general, managers do make sincere efforts to consider the needs of the people who report to them. Too often though, we try to address those needs based on what we would expect if we were in the same situation.

Instead, suggests Smallwood, we should take the time to learn enough about each person that we can understand what truly motivates them. This avoids costly misunderstandings that lead to lost productivity and higher employee turnover.

After all, as the article concludes, “I may like ice cream, but when I go fishing I use worms, ’cause fish like worms.”