370 Global Ethics for Leadership
There is an analogy with the values to which a family subscribe. At
best these encompass all members of a family; parents, grandparent,
brothers, sisters and children. There are established patterns of behav-
iour which are known and accepted by all as part of membership of the
family group. They are not codified, but established by example and
behaviour. They are also subject to adaptation. The situations encoun-
tered by children and grandchildren are different from those experienced
by their parents and grandparents and inevitably changes in behaviour
and response will be needed, but hopefully the underlying values remain
the same.
If this is difficult to achieve in a family, it is even more difficult in a
global corporation. The essential first step is a willingness to discuss and
debate. One of the reasons that I continued to work for Shell for so many
years, is that it was always acceptable to say “that does not seem quite
right to me”. You would not simply be told to get on with the job; peo-
ple at any level would engage in a discussion as to why it did not seem
quite right or fair and what could be done about it. Although I have been
involved at a different level in other companies such as Anglo Ameri-
can, HSBC, Accenture and Saudi Aramco, I have found the same broad
approach. The inclusion of Saudi Aramco on this list may surprise some,
but although the company operates in a totally different national, social
and political environment, I have in fact found the same to be true. If it
was not I would not remain on the board. This does not mean in any of
those companies that no compromises are made, but they are compro-
mises based on open discussion and clearly recognised as such.
29.2 Can Values in a Global Company be Genuinely
Global?
People often question whether, given the great diversity of cultural,
religious and political backgrounds in different countries, it is possible