Loyalty: A Lost "Best Practice" In Business
One of the most often espoused strategies in business management is called “best practices.” The hypothesis of “best practices” is if the executives of a company research, understand and then mimic the “best practices” of their most successful competitors, then their own success will be assured and come with less effort.
In reality, fealty to the idea of studying and copying the “best practices” of the competition is, for a variety of reasons, often more destructive than constructive. But that does not stop many from pushing the idea as a panacea for management.
Some business consulting firms even specialize in the area of “best practices” and offer ready-made templates to standardize business processes. These templates are sold as a map for management to adopt the best practices of other companies and they encompass virtually every process and procedure of the company.
The allure of adopting a “best practices” management strategy is obvious, but the efficacy of this approach is ripe for serious debate. (But that is fodder for another post.)
The Dimensions Of Best Practice In Business
In researching the philosophy of “best practices” it became apparent that this approach to achieving business success is focused on a two-dimensional approach to management, while real world management success is predicated on operating in a three-dimensional world. Allow me to explain.
Copying the physical processes and procedures other companies employ to complete various company functions is fairly straightforward, but the effectiveness and efficiency of these functions is determined by an entirely different dimension. Proponents of the “best practices” theory of management rarely, if ever, mention the importance of the third dimension of company success and that is the cultural environment of the company. They don’t mention it because a culture is unique to an individual company. A positive company culture can’t be copied, it can only be created.
In truth, trying to achieve success by attempting to replicate what others are doing is far more difficult and fraught with risk than defining your own brand of success and applying original thought and actions to realize it.
The Forgotten Best Practice In Business
Those in management who have come to believe that “best practices” is the easiest, best and maybe the only path to success have usually come to this conclusion because they failed to understand and employ the one dimension of management that would have put them in good stead to develop their own company’s unique best practices. That ill-forgotten philosophy is the building of a strong bond of loyalty between the company and the employee. Loyalty in and of itself will not assure success, but a strong bond of loyalty between management and the employees will put the company in a better position to achieve it.
However, loyalty is a seldom used word in the vernacular of those discussing best practices in business. Lumped in with typewriters and carbon paper, business managers seem to feel that loyalty is a practice that should be discarded. I could not disagree more. From my perspective, offering and engendering loyalty is the single most important concept a leader can implant in the culture of an organization.
Few will openly discount the potential value of loyalty, but writers, business schools and managers pooh-pooh loyalty as a viable concept because they argue that the nature of the relationship between employers and employees has undergone a fundamental change. Years ago, loyalty was a deep-seated concept created by a type of “lifetime contract” between the company and the employee. In consideration for the employee dedicating decades of their working life to the company, the company would promise to protect and take care of the employee. That is not the case today.
It is a catch-22 type situation. The employer views the employee as a “temporary tool” who is more likely to act out of loyalty to their own personal interests than to the organization and thus sees any attempt at building fidelity to the organization as a lost cause. The employee is dissuaded from offering loyalty to the organization because they have learned from experience that the management and company will do whatever it has to do to advance its own interests, without any concern for the employee.
There is no doubt that the nature of the relationship between employer and employee has changed, but the root cause of this is a failure on the part of management to invest in the concept of loyalty. The employee rightfully has the attitude, “If my company is not going to be loyal to me, why should I be loyal to the company?”
The absence of loyalty is both expensive and disruptive for the employer, while disheartening to the employee. It is expensive and disruptive for the organization if the best employees depart for better opportunities every few years and have to be replaced. At the same time, employees who are given no reason to offer loyalty to the company feel that they must endure the upheaval to life and families by shifting employers every few years in order to protect themselves and advance their career.
Building reciprocal loyalty between companies and employees is not a guarantee of success for an organization, but it does provide the best opportunity to achieve it, because loyalty encourages everyone to work toward the same goal. It has always been my philosophy that the primary duty as a manager or leader was to be loyal to those who worked with me. Only by being loyal could I expect loyalty in return. I was rarely disappointed.
Company executives argue that it is too time-consuming and expensive to build loyalty and besides, they believe employees won’t be loyal anyway. I disagree. Building a mutual bond of loyalty to and from employees is the least expensive investment a company can make and offers the very highest of returns. Building loyalty is not a process or procedure; it is achieved as the result of a cultural philosophy – a way of life. The actions needed to build organizational loyalty are easy and simple, but they must be consistent.
Here are a few simple examples of what an executive or company can do to encourage and build loyalty with employees.
Build Parallel Interests
If employee interests are aligned in parallel with the interests of the organization then loyalty is encouraged, because the employee is loyal to their own personal interests. As Scott Brooks of Gantz-Wiley Research has written, “The best kind (of loyalty) is when both parties are benefiting.”
For example: If all employees are allowed to share in the value they add to an organization, they will be encouraged to continue to add that value.
Support Those Who Work For You And They Will Support You
If the manager adopts the philosophy that they work for the employee and not the other way around, the employee is encouraged to be loyal to the manager because that loyalty will be rewarded.
For example: If the manager provides the employee with the support, tools and protection to do their job, then doing the job is easier and the employee will respond with a better effort. When the employee knows they will receive credit when credit is due and not be unfairly blamed when things go wrong, they will be encouraged to be loyal to the manager.
Allow The Employee To Grow Out Of Their Job
One of the best ways for a manager to build loyalty is to build an environment that creates reasons to stay with the company, not leave it. One of the ways to do this is to demonstrate a serious interest on the part of the manager in the career development and advancement of the employee. If the employee understands that they do not have to leave in order to expand their skills and advance their career, there is little incentive to leave.
To do so requires not putting an employee in a “box” that limits their options within the organization. An employee who is valued in the accounting department, but who has an interest in marketing will see no reason to leave if given the opportunity to explore that interest within the company. Allowing an employee to explore potential interests and career development is easy, but it is amazing how many managers do not recognize this and then are surprised when the employee leaves.
After researching the subject of company loyalty, business writer Lauren Keller Johnson discovered, “And when firms help workers acquire new skills and support their professional advancement, they often win those workers’ commitment – and attract loyal new employees. This gives rise to another important point: Employers can promote company loyalty by helping people grow out of their jobs – ideally, into new ones within the company.”
Empower People
Almost everyone talks about the power of “empowerment,” but it has become a cliché because, so few managers actually do it. Most organizations are by nature bureaucratic, and the nature of a bureaucracy is to centralize not de-centralize power. Limiting the power of the employee to “make a difference,” is the antithesis of building loyalty. If an employee is given the task and responsibility to do a job, but the company does not demonstrate the trust in an employee enough to give them the real power to do the job, the employee has no incentive to build loyalty to the company.
Loyalty is built upon trust and without it there can be no loyalty. The surest sign of trust is to give the employee the power to make decisions to do the right thing. If that trust is granted, it is amazing how closely loyalty follows.
And The Moral Of The Story …
The idea and potential benefits of adopting “best practices” is attractive but worthless unless all dimensions of effective management are applied to the effort. And the most endearing practice is the practice of loyalty.
There are many other ways loyalty can be established between a company and the employee, but the most important point to note is that none of these suggested actions increase the costs of a company to do business. Rather, such actions actually reduce costs by reducing turnover (especially of talented employees), improving employee commitment, productivity and efforts to help the company be successful.
Developing an environment and culture that cultivates and builds a bond of loyalty between company and employee is the best “best practices” a company can adopt in order to build its future.
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