FOREWORD

All of us in the world of workforce transformation are continually challenged to find the best practices that will produce the outcomes worthy of great organizations. I have made a career out of helping business leaders transform their workforces so they can have an impact on the world. In the course of that work, I have witnessed many leaders struggle to achieve business success while maintaining the trust and respect of their colleagues. Building and maintaining trust and respect are among the most important work of leaders.

It helps to have a model. For me, Steve Harrison serves that role. I met Steve shortly after I joined Lee Hecht Harrison (also known as LHH). I found myself challenged by a demanding situation. One of our biggest clients had recently merged with another company, and leadership faced a number of challenges on the people side. It was clear to me that the client was looking for something more.

I asked Steve to spend some time with the client, and the results were magical. He offered a completely different perspective, shifting the frame of the situation from challenge to opportunity. The client came away from the interaction inspired.

I studied how Steve did it. I was immediately impressed by the daily behaviors Steve displayed from the moment we met. He modeled the practice, well described in this book, of greeting the receptionist as the CEO of First Impressions. He reminded me that in any relationship getting the first impression right has a durable impact on the long-term experience. Any business that values fashioning customer delight based on positive touch points understands this dynamic.

First impressions are telling. I have interviewed countless candidates for positions, and they are invariably agreeable and well-behaved. After the interview, I often ask the receptionist for their experience with the candidate. Candidate interaction with the front desk seems to me highly revealing of character. More than once, I have decided not to continue the conversation with a candidate because of what the receptionist reported.

Corporate leaders agree trust is paramount. Sustainable businesses are built on trust. Too often, however, the talk is little more than conceptual. This book demonstrates how organizations build trustworthy environments grounded in decencies. What has really shifted in today’s business world is increased transparency. When a company breaks trust, the world knows about it immediately. A world driven by social media makes the whole topic of decency much more important than ever.

This book reminds us that repetition and recognition of small decencies are the two key elements of building resilient corporate cultures. If an organization focuses on the small things that need to be done every day, over time it will create the critical mass that yields the behavioral shifts we desire.

Steve and Jim Lukaszewski have joined up to write The Decency Code. America’s Crisis Guru®, Jim brings four decades of experience assisting corporate leaders facing conflict, contention, controversy, or opposition. Steve’s first book made me think about leadership dynamics in a new, bold way, and I predict that with Jim’s contributions, The Decency Code will do the same for a new generation of readers by teaching them to take highly focused, civility- and decency-inspired, ethically appropriate action.

If you are genuinely invested in helping people without expectation of return, you are on the right track. In this book, Steve and Jim help you model leadership grounded in civilities and decencies and give you the tools to help integrate a culture of decencies into your organization. The resources they share will help you create a healthy management mindset, improve business performance, promote trust, reduce stress, and build better relationships with your colleagues and teammates.

I resonate with simple tools and concepts, often challenging to achieve. The concepts and tools that Steve and Jim share in The Decency Code may be straightforward and inexpensive to implement, but they require a resource that most enterprises find difficult to sustain: commitment over time. Sustaining a civil and decent culture—especially when an organization is stressed or struggling—is a measure of the resilience that every company needs to survive adversity.

One thing that sets Steve and Jim apart from other business authors is their compassion. They genuinely know the pressures that frontline supervisors, midlevel managers, and C-suite leaders face every day. In these pages, you will read of companies that have resisted unethical conduct as well as those that have succumbed. The book makes the case that a flourishing culture of civility and decency resists unethical conduct.

In The Decency Code, you will find a fully developed and actionable model for building a decent workplace culture. Anyone invested in building a corporate culture that inspires a sense of purpose, empowers human beings to do their best in any business climate, and inoculates their organizations from ethical failure will be well rewarded by applying the many lessons of this book. In their encouragement, humor, and compassion, Jim and Steve are committed to your success.

Ranjit de Sousa
President, Lee Hecht Harrison
Zurich, Switzerland