CHAPTER 3

DECENCIES: A WORKING DEFINITION

All of us, at one time or another, have used the word decency in some form. We may associate decency with being considerate, courteous, gracious, honest, honorable, thoughtful, appropriate, tasteful, respectful, obliging, or helpful. We talk of decent acts, decent behaviors, a decent person, a decent wage. We find ourselves relating to a word that reflects specific behaviors. Even the opposite, indecent, is something that most of us can relate to: “indecent exposure” is quite vivid to us. “Are you decent?” was originally backstage theater jargon for “Are you dressed?”

Let’s narrow down the definition of a business decency. A business decency is a gesture offered without expectation of reward that, in ways small and large, can change the corporate culture for the better. This definition may be a bit dense, so let’s unpack it term by term.

A decency is, first, a discrete gesture or action. A decency must be acted out for it to have meaning. Decency can’t be suggested; it must be acted. Good intentions remain intentions until there is visible follow-through. Wanting to be decent is like wanting to lose weight. “I want to be decent” has as much to do with actually being decent as “I want to lose weight” has to do with actually doing the work of losing weight.

A genuine decency is freely offered rather than compelled. A decency cannot be coerced by a supervisor or required by a published policy. It is voluntary or spontaneous on the part of the individual offering it because, in this instance, it is consistent with the individual’s—and, hopefully, the organization’s—values. Providing employees with safe working conditions is not, by the definition of this book, a decency; it’s just the minimum requirement for being safe in business. Whenever something is codified by such bodies as the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), it is an obligation rather than a decency.

An equal opportunity workplace free of harassment is a requirement rather than a decency; it’s an expectation that has become the desired norm and is enforced by the rule of law. While the continuum between decencies and mandates is always evolving, what’s important is that at the time the small decency gesture is made, the giver is acting in the best interest of someone else of his or her own volition with zero expectation of reward.

If you offer a gesture with the expectation of explicit reciprocity, it becomes a transaction, a form of barter. There is nothing wrong with this; the vast bulk of human interactions operate on this basis. “I’ll help you cut your lawn if you help me build my fence.” A gesture, however decent, offered to advance an ulterior motive, however beneficial, is not a decency, but a bribe. Having an ulterior or hidden motive negates the decency. People can usually smell a hidden agenda a mile away, and when they do, they run, not walk, the other way.

The terms decency and civility are related, and we use both terms in this book. Civility is formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech and, as such, is a subset of decency. Civility is a good thing to display, but decency, we suggest, goes deeper. A leader can be thoroughly unscrupulous and still be civil. Decency invokes matters of character and values. A leader may be civil and still be toxic.

Decencies Are Transformational

The unilateral and spontaneous quality of decencies make them powerful and often transformational. For that reason, decencies are no longer merely transactional; they become transformational. They have the ability to transform both the giver and the receiver and affect the culture at the same time. Decencies often catalyze powerful stories, and stories travel. The lack of decencies also creates stories, stories that are often long-lasting.

Decencies define the signals that organizations send to their internal and external audiences. The unifying theme of these messages rounds out a set of norms that clearly define the limits between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. The messages help the participants act genuinely as members of a community. The messages are so ingrained that they give the members of the community confidence to assert, “That’s not how we do things around here” when faced with a violation of the culture.

The Two-Minute Schmooze

Our exposure to the power of decencies started with the two-minute schmooze.

Steve Harrison is one of three founders of Lee Hecht Harrison, the world’s leading career management company. At one point, the time was right to bring on a chief operating officer. The company needed an executive to handle the day-to-day responsibilities of running a rapidly growing company with offices in more than 25 cities across the United States. The COO the company hired was named Ray. He had an MBA and had recently retired from the US Army with the rank of brigadier general.

Steve decided to take Ray on a tour of the company so he could get to know as many people as possible.

Steve and Ray started their tour with several branch offices in the Northeast. At midmorning, the team arrived at their first stop, a midsized branch, and passed through the glass doors into the familiar reception area. Melissa, the receptionist, was on duty.

“How are you, Melissa?” Steve asked casually as they approached the reception desk.

“Fine. And you, Steve?”

“Great. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

Steve then proceeded toward the interior offices. Suddenly, he found himself being pulled back into the reception area. Ray looked agitated.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked Ray.

Ray said nothing. Instead, he firmly guided Steve back to the reception desk. Then Steve watched as Ray made an ally and a memory. The first thing Ray did was shake hands, show his charismatic smile, and say, “Good morning, Melissa, I’m Ray. I’ll be the new COO. It’s so great to meet you!”

After introducing himself, Ray launched into a dialogue with Melissa. “How long have you been with us?” “How did you hear about us?” “What did you do before you joined our firm?” “What kind of dog is that in the picture?” “What do you think of this business we’re in together?” The collaborative language was infectious. It communicated that Ray and Melissa were together in an enterprise as equal partners.

Nor did the questioning go just one way.

Ray asked Melissa if she had any questions. He waited. Eventually, Melissa did ask a couple of questions, and Ray answered them candidly. Melissa was clearly delighted with the exchange.

Finally, Ray said, “Well, really nice to meet you, Melissa. Keep doin’ what you’re doin’. We need you! I look forward to seeing you next time I’m here.” And with that Ray and Steve went inside to meet the rest of the staff.

As the team exited the reception area, Steve asked Ray, “What was that all about?”

“Steve,” Ray said, “that’s called the two-minute schmooze! Receptionists meet or talk by phone to more people critical to our company in one month than you or I could ever meet during a year: people at all levels, from all our branches everywhere, our customers, our suppliers, our colleagues, our bosses, our applicants, and job seekers. Most of all receptionists talk to each other. Melissa and the dozens like her at the firm serve as nothing less than our concierge desk. They are a key part of our reputation. And anyway, it’s just the decent thing to do.”

The decent thing to do. Of course, Steve had heard those words before, but hadn’t put them in a work context in such a focused way. Ray’s two-minute schmooze is how Steve first learned of the power of small decencies, and it’s a perfect illustration of decent leadership and the impact it can have on organizations.

Decency Signals

Decency messages signal many things. “Warm and fuzzy” may be one of them, and that’s okay. But there’s an element of rigor to decencies, especially if we want them to be effective on a large scale. Based on our experience, effective decencies have many of the following characteristics:

Actionable. Organizations change by changing behavior. A decency is both an action and a catalyst for action. A decent act signals an immediate change in the behavior of the manager who offers it. The behavior of the person who receives the decency may also change. He or she may be inspired by the decency to perform better or communicate more effectively, or he or she may emulate the decency to other coworkers. Taken together, the initial action and the catalyzed action enhance the culture of the organization. Ray’s two-minute schmooze was a discreet action—a conversation—that was a catalyst to encourage other managers to perform the same behavior.

Tangible. A decency can produce a measurable change to the environment. An intangible decency, by contrast, is a virtue, such as integrity or honesty. These are desirable qualities to strive for. But when these qualities are expressed in a way that is tangible, vivid, and, most of all, replicable, then virtues become decencies. They are perceptible by the senses and memorable. Melissa, the receptionist, probably recalled and recounted the specifics of her conversation with Ray many years later.

Affordable. A business decency must be within the financial means of the manager or organization. Small decencies, by definition, incur little or no investment. Ray’s two-minute schmooze was free to the company. Small decencies must also be affordable in other ways. They shouldn’t encumber the organization with undue overhead, unfunded mandates, legal liability, or counterproductive precedents.

Replicable. Decencies need to be replicable and scalable. Repeating the two-minute schmooze just strengthens its power. A decency offered to an individual is always welcome, but if the gesture is so constituted that it can be offered to only one individual, it may not rise to the level of a small decency. It’s a one-off. A small decency works like ripples in a pond, creating impact and repetition far from the origin.

Sustainable. Decencies are best when they are implemented for today but are also available for the future. A decency is sustainable when the goodwill it generates for the organization over the long run more than compensates for the resources invested in it. We like to think that the two-minute schmooze became more widespread in the organization.

Starbucks Decencies

We end this discussion with an example of how a corporation makes decency actionable. Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz has been a persistent champion of decency at work. In their 2014 annual meeting, he talked with investors about the role of corporations to “use our scale for good.”

Every business today must confront often unfamiliar issues. Three examples are diversity, inclusion, and equity. These are more than fashionable buzzwords. They are business and often legal imperatives. Companies with inclusive practices in hiring, promotion, development, leadership, and team management generate up to 30 percent higher revenue per employee and greater profitability than their competitors, according to research from Deloitte.¹ Authentic inclusion values each employee and the wealth of experiences they bring to the job, thus inspiring and empowering people to want to give more to the organization.

Leaders can be proactive, or they can be reactive. In either case, leaders will find themselves forced to have an important conversation. Recall, for example, what happened when Starbucks faced an uproar following the arrest of two black men after a store manager called police. After a half-hearted attempt to support the store manager, CEO Howard Schultz acknowledged that the store manager had made a mistake and unconscious bias was the issue. In response, in a closely watched decision, Starbucks closed more than 8,000 of its company-owned stores for several hours on May 29, 2018, to provide racial bias training for 175,000 workers. The move signaled how important the company considered the incident and how committed it was to provide the training so a similar incident would not reoccur.

Instead of “let’s find the racists among us and fix them or remove them,” the company recognized that unconscious bias is a structural problem. Pointing fingers and placing blame is never the answer. Implicit bias training starts by helping workers understand that many biases are ingrained. That insight is generally reinforced by role-playing exercises designed to reveal how biases play out in the workplace and operationalized by offering strategies for tackling those ingrained biases at work.

To underscore his commitment to decencies at work, Schultz published a two-page advertisement in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The ads, in stark black and white, listed the foundational basis for any culture of decencies. As of this writing, the 48-year tradition of quality food products and innovative culture continue throughout Starbucks’ 30,000 locations globally.