384 Global Ethics for Leadership
they are at. That is one reason why increasing reward and other differen-
tiations to excessive levels are as damaging within an organisation as
outside. As an assistant and colleague Barbara was exceptional, but I
have been fortunate to have many exceptional people among the ten
personal assistants in different countries and jobs that I have had in my
career in Shell and later as Chairman of Anglo American.
29.5 How to Check on the Penetration of Values
within a Company
If ensuring the penetration and widespread absorption of the values
and principles of a company are critical how can one check that it has
been achieved? I believe that there are three ways; to sleep easily one
needs to have all three in place.
The first is simply personal contact. With a global company this in-
volves travelling a lot and spending time talking to groups of people and
listening to their questions and comments. Clearly this depends on style
and also on their being a feeling of openness. It does not have to be done
by one person, even if this were possible, as almost all of us feel more at
ease with some people than with others. With an open team and a net-
work of people who can reflect the opinions and concerns of their col-
leagues, the coverage becomes very wide. Without people feeling free to
ask me in meetings about what they saw as a mixed message on produc-
tion versus safety I might not have realised that people had doubts on the
message. I might have assumed, until something went wrong, that eve-
ryone had read and was acting on what I thought was a clear message.
The second check is through very well designed global surveys con-
ducted independently with a guaranteed of anonymity. Many people are
sceptical about the usefulness of such surveys, saying that people do
bother to participate or else they do not put down what they really think.
This is not my experience.