Andy G. Pennington’s book came highly recommended and I was eager to get my hands on it. I had to send for it through the wonderful “SWAN” library system here in Illinois, where with a few keystrokes and a mouse click I have access to more than 30 libraries as if they were all my own.
There’s a lot of good stuff in the book. Really. It talks about pursuit of the best, accountability, admitting your mistakes, turning vision into action, creating behaviors that demonstrate values.
But I will confess that I had to force myself to keep reading past the preface to find all these things. Because the 1st sentence in the book is “Why is Wal-Mart the largest retailer in the world?”. From my perspective, the answer to that question is: because it sells things for the cheapest prices around. And it does that by having a vast underpaid non-benefited work force, by taking advantage of people who don’t have a lot of employment options. It also does it by carefully putting huge mega-stores in areas where it can drive out all other competition, especially long-standing family-owned local small businesses.
These are not the kinds of results I would want in a company with which I am affiliated. And before you ask, no, I do not shop at Wal-Mart. Even unemployed I would rather either pay a little more in a store that respects its employees, or go without for now.
From my standpoint, if “results” only means profits and market dominance, then this is not what I want to “rule”. The book’s premise is ‘the right culture can make all the difference’. Indeed. Egypt and Rome are two cultures I can think of that built long-standing cultures on slavery. I am NOT comparing Wal-Mart employment to slavery, but I do believe there are some parallels. It has to do with valuing people. That is, valuing people over strictly financial “results”.
In an attempt to be fair, Mr. Pennington talks about a lot of other companies, many of which I admire. He also explicitly talks, later, about valuing people. But he does not make the connection, and that disappoints me.
Mr. Pennington talks later in the book about people fitting the culture. I suppose he would say that Wal-Mart’s is a “culture” in which I do not fit. Agreed. But what about people who don’t have the choices and resources I have? Should they and their children go without health care and life insurance because of Wal-Mart’s “culture”? He says: “Results Rule! Leaders and organizations have an edge – a deep passion for competing, contributing, and yes, winning”. Personally I don’t much care for the idea that “deep passion” and “fear of losing your job if you don’t accept what you get and keep your mouth shut” are the same thing.
NB: this is a blog, a rant. This is a larger story and Wal-Mart is not the only company on this planet whose values I do not respect. It simply happens to be the one mentioned on the very first page of a book in which I had significant hopes – until I read that 1st page.
Wal-Mart is successful in part because Americans often care about the lowest price over anything else. Some people’s budgets pretty much require they think that way and others are hypocritical enough to complain about losses of American jobs but buy cheap stuff from overseas anyway. But I cannot accept that this makes Wal-Mart a company with an admirable culture. And I do not admire its results.
Can you make money doing well? I believe so. But you have to a) not have money as your primary goal (or “result”, if you like), and b) be willing to invest in the longer term. Loyal employees and satisfied customers are good for business in the long run. In fact, assuming you aren’t actually losing money, they are good goals in and of themselves.
Maybe results do rule, as Mr. Pennington says. But not all results rule with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment