If we ask the right question, we may get a good answer.  If we ask the wrong question, we will be stuck in an endless unproductive loop.  Jim Wallis, who attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, suggests the wrong question is “When will this recession end?” and the right question is “How will this crisis change us?”  He suggests that we need a moral recovery to accompany or even stimulate the economic recovery.  How hard do you have to be hit on the head before you wake up?  It’s time to ask the values questions that are at the heart of how we got into this crisis and are critical to getting out of it for good.

In all my work over four decades with organizations from some of the largest to many of the smallest, for-profit, not-for-profit, religious, educational, business, museums, the underlying driver is how is the standards by which an organization makes its decisions?  Ichak Adizes called this the organization’s culture.  He suggested that the best way to analyze an organization’s culture is to look at recent decisions it has made, and derive the underlying culture that would have to be in place in order for such decisions to be made.

Some people think of decisions as scientific like solving a math problem.  The reality of business and life decisions is that ultimately they are all driven by the values of the individual and the culture of the organization which reflects the values of the leaders.  Our current recession appears to me to be a result of the following values:

          – Greed is good

– It’s all about me and what I want now

– Don’t worry about the next generation or even the next five years

– We are inherently all good people, and the invisible hand of Adam Smith will make everything work out right

It seems that now it is time to consider some new values, such as those espoused by the small-giant businesses that Bo Burlingham has written about in his book, Small Giants: Businesses that Choose to be Great Instead of Good.  These are businesses that have multiple bottom lines and have not fallen into the Wall Street mantra or the Nobel Prize-winning economists’ mantra that the only purpose and goal of a business is shareholder return.  Small giants, rather, commit to multiple values of a sound business along with a nurturing relationship with employees, a needs-satisfying relationship with customers, and a contributing relationship to its community.  Here are the values that you might want to consider for yourself, your children, and your business:

          – Enough is enough

          – We’re in it together

– How will this decision impact our staff, our customers, our community?

Note:  Jim Wallis has written a challenging book called Rediscovering Values on Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street.

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