Crucial Qualities of High-Character Employees
3. Care
4. Courage
5. Fairness
6. Gratitude
7. Humility
8. Loyalty
9. Patience
10. Presence
Conclusion
Call to Action
Acknowledgments
Endnotes
Index
About the Author
The Missing Link to Excellence
Take a look at any job description. What do employers say they’re looking for? No matter what the job is, its description focuses on two things: what the employee needs to know, and what the employee needs to do.
Knowledge and skill are essential qualities in any employee. But are they enough? Isn’t there another aspect of a job candidate’s profile that is at least as important as knowledge and skill — namely, that person’s character?
Consider what’s at stake. Would you really want to hire an accountant who was at the top of her class in business school if she is also a liar and a thief? What electronics company would want one of the country’s leading software engineers on its team if that person lost his temper at every real or perceived slight? If you want to sell your home, would it matter to you that your broker bad-mouths his employer on his Facebook page?
There’s a quantifiable cost to businesses when employee behavior is less than exemplary. Employees who are actively disengaged cost U.S. businesses between $450 and $550 billion per year, according to a State of the American Workforce report from Gallup. The typical organization loses 5 percent of revenues each year to fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2014 global survey. The median loss in the survey was $145,000, and 22 percent of the cases involved losses of at least $1 million. Workplace violence costs businesses an estimated $36 billion a year and affects over two million Americans. These statistics suggest a painful truth in business: questionable character is costly.
Why Don’t Companies Focus on Character?
Given the importance of character, it’s surprising, even disturbing, that companies pay so little attention to it when hiring and promoting people. Why is this the case? I asked many business and thought leaders this question, and here’s what four of them had to say.
“Some companies don’t think it’s important, or they’re not willing to put down a set of behavioral values that they’re going to hold people accountable to,” observes Joel Manby, president and CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment, the largest family-owned theme-park corporation in the United States, whose holdings include Dollywood and the Harlem Globetrotters.
“Sometimes companies are reluctant to bring up character in an interview because they’re afraid they’re not going to get an honest answer or that they’ll be inviting platitudes,” notes Mary Gentile, director of Giving Voice to Values, a business curriculum piloted in over five hundred business schools and organizations around the world.
“I can’t think of a well-known company that includes references to character in their hiring practices,” observes John Spence, whom Trust Across America selected as one of the country’s top one hundred thought leaders. John, who is a voracious reader of business literature, notes that “if these books talk about character at all, it is inevitably with respect to the leader of a company, not his or her employees.”
Alan Tecktiel, senior HR director at the global law firm Baker & McKenzie, adds that even if companies do acknowledge how important it is to hire people of high character, they tend to do so during the job interview rather than when selecting candidates for interviews.
Given what’s at stake, wouldn’t it make sense to place character front and center at every phase of hiring and promotion, beginning with the job descriptions themselves? It’s time for an in-depth look at what it means to be a person of high character in the workplace and why smart companies hire and promote people like the folks you’ll meet in this book:
Brenda Harry, an employee at the Goodwill store in Pearisburg, Virginia, who found $3,100 in cash in a coat she was processing. She turned in the money, even though no one would have ever known if she had decided to keep it for herself.
Janice Piacente, a senior compliance officer who routinely gives her team the credit for implementing groundbreaking ideas that she comes up with.
The twenty thousand employees of Market Basket, a New England grocery store chain who left their jobs after the company’s CEO, Arthur T. Demoulas, was fired. Demoulas had fought tirelessly for his workers, and they repaid his loyalty with such a widespread protest that it drew national media attention and resulted in his reinstatement.
These are men and women of high character who have chosen to take the high road when it would have been easy to do otherwise. We’ll also hear from high-character people who, by their own admission, made poor decisions at crucial points in their lives, and we’ll see how those choices affected them. These include Stanley, an accountant, who says that his reluctance to stand up to a corrupt boss in the 1970s continues to haunt him. He explains how that experience taught him the importance of courage, even when one’s job is on the line.
Finally, we’ll encounter people for whom the term high-character is not fitting. Their stories are told from the perspective of former direct reports, colleagues, and bosses, who suffered the consequences of their dishonorable behavior. They include men and women like these:
Dirk, a bookkeeper at a consulting firm who found himself incapable of balancing the books one quarter and decided to fudge a few numbers. This decision required further lies down the road, until the problem grew so large that he was forced to admit what he’d done. He lost both his job and the trust that everyone had placed in him.
Theodore, a manager whose constant stream of insults, angry outbursts, and refusal to acknowledge the good work of his staff transformed what had been a joyful workplace into a toxic environment. His attitude has prompted at least one senior staff member to look for a new job after fifteen years of excellent work.
Federico, an Italian executive whose pattern of asking for suggestions from his team and then ignoring them completely compromised both his relationships at work and the financial interests of his company.
If you’re a manager, you’ll see from these stories why smart companies actively recruit and promote high-character employees. Wouldn’t you want someone like Brenda Harry to work for you? If you’re applying for a job, these stories may spur you to think about how you’ve dealt with difficult situations honorably. They’ll prepare you for questions you may encounter in your interview or prompt you to tell your own stories as a way of demonstrating that you are a person of high character. And if you’re seeking a promotion or raise, the stories here illustrate why it’s in your best interests to discuss during your performance review the notable choices you’ve made at work.
Character