Mackey’s Values Didn’t Hold
Fast Company’s February issue profiled John Mackey’s, CEO of Whole Foods, decision to “No Longer Work for Money“. I walked around and showed it to everyone highlighting the integrity of the organization and how they handled their stock options and executive pay. I was impressed.
The more I read the more impressed I was. Here was an entrepreneur trying to do things in a way that he believed would improve the world. I looked at their corporate values, their Declaration of Independence and their team structures. I visited a store to compare it with their competitor, a store in my community, and found that they did live up to their desire to “Satisfy and Delight Our Customers.” Being a huge believer in corporate citizenship, I was impressed by their community involvement “From Local to Global.”
So when the news broke yesterday that John Mackey had been posting on the Yahoo stock-market forum for Whole Foods under a pseudonym, Rahodeb (apparently an anagram of his wife, Deborah’s name), I was so terribly disappointed. Not only was he not being transparent about who he was; he even spoke at times negatively about his own company playing “Devil’s Advocate”.
As a leader and CEO , that’s not his job - he is supposed to be the standard bearer setting the bar for those who work for him. It is painfully obvious that he lost sight of his values. “Integrity in All Business Dealings” was not the case here. It’s a good lesson for us. In fact, we should consider this a wake-up call. We need to take a hard look at our values.
Do my actions and words at home, in private, at work, in print and in person reflect the integration of my values into my life? I have a pact with a friend that is an agreement that if she dies, I am to go to her home, clean and make sure everything is picture perfect so people don’t think she is a slob. In fact, her home is always spotless, but she places such a great value on a clean home that she wants to makes sure, even in death, her home is clean. She has integrated, possibly over-integrated her personal values.
When I first started personal blogging several years ago, our IT guy came to me and said, “Remember, the internet lives forever. What ever you put out there will last, even if you take it down. Someone will have it in their cache or printed the page, so don’t say anything in print you would regret.” That has tempered my tongue and my typing in a very healthy way.
Are my actions, words and attitude at work reflecting the values of the organization I work for? If not, why? If the corporate values compromise your personal values, then its time to find work somewhere where you can support the values. Its just that easy. If the corporate values don’t compromise your personal values, then why can’t you integrate them? What is preventing you from doing this?
That’s a good start for us. Examining our actions, words and attitude in light of our values. Let’s hope that we will see more courageous leadership and less of the actions of individuals like Mr. Mackey.