VALUES THAT MATTER

Values are meaningful only if people understand them. If they are vague or poorly communicated, they will not be real to people and, therefore, will not guide their behaviors and decisions.

At Baxter, in order to create values that really mattered, we gathered a diverse group from all areas and levels of the company. I had the pleasure of spearheading this effort as the CFO. Although you might not associate corporate values with the finances of a company, I recognized that this project was an incredible opportunity to bring together all fifty thousand people in the organization.

The group engaged in a self-reflective exercise to consider who we were and what we stood for as a company. Regardless of division, function, geography, or level, there were common values that tied us together. This exercise offered a fascinating perspective, because people often think about how unique they are within an organization. Instead of focusing on the singular contributions that a person, team, or unit can make, we looked at what we all had in common. What applied equally to an accounts payable supervisor in Singapore, a salesperson in Buenos Aires, a manufacturing manager in Stockholm, and a laboratory technician in Round Lake, Illinois? We weren't trying to be overly intellectual; the values needed to make sense on a gut level while capturing what we felt in our hearts. Once we identified them, we needed to be able to discuss these values in such a way that everyone, in every part of the organization, could relate to them.

The values we identified were respect, responsiveness, and results. From the first time the “3Rs” were communicated, they resonated across the company. People really appreciated these values and could relate to them personally, regardless of their job title or geography.

As a leader within the company, I engaged in self-reflection in order to assess how well I was demonstrating these corporate values. How did I measure up on showing respect, being responsive, and delivering results? The principle of balance helped me appreciate the importance of different perspectives, which enabled me to be more responsive. Genuine humility encouraged respect for everyone and allowed me to see that we are all in this together. Although one person may have a fancier title or receive more compensation than someone else, every person mattered. From that point on, I stopped referring to people as “employees” and began calling them “team members.”

The more I reflected on the 3Rs, the more meaning I derived from them. I saw that no matter how productive someone is, if he or she does not respect others, that person is not going to be employed by the company. To be responsive meant that if, for example, marketing requested help from engineering, the only acceptable response would be to say yes. It wasn't enough to identify only with one's department or peers; the whole company was one team. How else could we serve customers and produce results?

Our corporate values led to greater accountability because people saw that they no longer merely performed a job; they were part of a whole with a greater purpose. In the health care industry, that meant helping people become healthy and lead more satisfying lives. People in a manufacturing facility, for example, didn't just put plastic connectors on devices. Their jobs were to help patients with renal failure receive the dialysis treatments that would keep them alive.

We put human faces on what we did every day, by inviting patients to visit the manufacturing plants. I have heard patients with heart valves tell hundreds of team members at the plant, “I want to thank all of you. My heart is beating today because of what you have done.” On another occasion, a family visited a Baxter facility to thank the team members who made dialysis products. “Dad was a Baxter dialysis patient until he died last week,” one of the adult children explained. “He had kidney failure fifteen years ago. The only reason he lived this long was because of your therapies.”

Our values also brought into focus another important segment of the people we serve: the shareholders. We saw that, through our results, we were creating wealth for people who bought the stock and expected it to increase in value over time. They were counting on an investment in Baxter to send their children to college or to help fund their retirement. Therefore, along with respect and responsiveness, we needed to have a strong focus on results, which generated sales and cash flow and increased the stock price.

The values of respect, responsiveness, and results tied everyone in the organization together, setting expectations of how we would operate as one team. At the same time, they also helped determine the fit factor. In other words, for those who embraced the values, there was affirmation that the company was, indeed, the place where they belonged. For others, it was an indication that the time had come to move on. Perhaps they didn't see the need for respect or responsiveness, or maybe they didn't feel they could measure up to the expectation of producing results. Remember, these values were a complete package; people couldn't choose the one or two they wanted to follow.

Fortunately, as Baxter's values were communicated throughout the organization, the overwhelming response was positive. People liked the idea of three interdependent values that spoke to every facet of what we needed to be as individual players and as a team. Some people also equated the values with something that William Graham, Baxter's first CEO, had said many years ago: “Aren't we blessed to be able to do well by doing good?” Through the corporate values, something that had been part of the company's legacy was celebrated again.

Once the values were articulated and communicated, we couldn't just stick them up on a bulletin board someplace. They needed to be put into action in a tangible way that made people accountable for how they demonstrated these values. Performance appraisals began to reflect how people measured up to each of the values: were they respectful, responsive, and results oriented? As we saw, no matter what the job description, the values provided a concrete definition of what each of us had to do.

The values penetrated deeply into the organization, more than I would have imagined. As people began to get their arms around what it meant to be respectful, they began interacting in more positive ways. Responsiveness also took on new meaning as people began to consider how they could meet each other's needs. For example, if a team member was well trained and a valuable contributor, but could no longer put in as many work hours as she had in the past because she was a new mother, responsiveness encouraged workplace solutions. Could flextime or job sharing help? Life balance suddenly became a priority that helped people see beyond the boundaries of how things had been done in the past. For another person, the ideal situation might be to work not nine to five but ten to six because of family obligations or health issues. Soon we experienced a dramatic increase in the number of people on flextime and in job sharing.

Because our three values were not mutually exclusive, everything we did had to improve results as well. One of the results we realized quite unexpectedly was external recognition from organizations and from such publications as Working Mother as one of the best places to work. As we were able to offer greater flexibility in work arrangements, turnover in the company declined significantly. Greater retention meant lower costs, which contributed positively to the bottom line. People felt good about themselves, their teams, and the outside recognition that the company was receiving. In addition, we were able to recruit a greater number of high-caliber people who wanted to join a healthy, growing team.

Some people might say that not every firm can afford to offer flextime and job sharing because there wouldn't be enough people working when and where they were needed, especially in a difficult economic environment. Believe me, I understand, because we found ourselves in the same situation at times. What we discovered, however, was the opposite: we couldn't afford not to offer these things to our team members. Not only was it the right thing to do from a social and human capital perspective, but it also helped build a strong team of talented people who were loyal contributors to the organization. These factors, I found, made for the ultimate win-win for the individual and the company.