Living by Our Conscience--Reflections on My Personal Life and Procter & Gamble

There will be several turning points in all our lives – and in fact we may have to reach this most important point many times. It is the point at which we make the decision: “I will live by my conscience from this time forward to the best of my ability. I will not allow my voice, social mirror, scripting, even my own rationalizing, to speak more clearly to me than the voice of conscience and, whatever the consequence, I will follow it!”

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles”.

Of all the principles that guide us, the two most essential to peace of mind are contribution –making a valuable difference – and conscience – being trustworthy – to oneself and to others.

We know that our Company will only be as strong as the intelligence, judgment and character of our employees.
Our people...our values...our principles...they are the one competitive advantage that cannot be duplicated. Technology can be copied, capital can be bought, and strategies can be gleaned from what we do and from what others write. But values...principles...these cannot be copied and picked up. They flow with the heritage and character of the people who have been with and are with the Company today...the way we work together and the expectations we have of one another.

It is most difficult and often most important for you to hold your ground when you are most alone. Only conviction, strength of character and courage will let you do this. But there will be times in your life when it will be all-important. Times when we must hold on to our convictions –not being swayed by others – even those of great repute.

(An excerpt from my personal memoir, "As Good as it Gets", 2018)

The Role Teachers Play in Building Our Expectations and Helping Us Become Who We Are

Almost thirty years ago, in May, 1989, I addressed a group of award winning K-12 teachers. 

I concluded my remarks saying that there is only one thing that I wouldn’t dream of leaving here without talking with you.  It is something that I have seen played out in my life and in other peoples’ lives again and again. 

I’m talking about the role of expectations and values…and the incredible role that teachers have played for me and my family in building our expectations and values—and hence our future.

My deep, deep conviction in the role teachers play in creating our future goes back to my earliest years.

While I was blessed with a good home and wonderful parents who were ready to make any sacrifice to help me get a good education—still I know I would not be the person I am today if it were not for a handful of teachers that I can vividly remember to this very day.  They influenced my life in a variety of ways.  The inculcated a love of learning and the thrill of discovering new concepts. And they provided a good dose of plain faith and discipline.

But above all,  they conveyed to me the belief that I could do well.  That was so important.  It is one thing—and a very important thing—to have your mother or father express confidence in you, but it is also an enormously important thing to have that confidence expressed by a teacher, particularly one you respect.

In preparing for this talk, I went back to my report cards which, believe it or not, I still have from high school—1952-56.

Some of them brought tears to my eyes as I more than ever recognized the influence of a particular teacher.  I would just like to read you a couple of excerpts from these report cards. While they may not be totally clear in their meaning, they will give you a sense of what this teacher did for me.

His name was Andrew Jenks. He was my homeroom teacher and my math teacher.  Here was his report after he had known me for about six months in my first year:

“John is a very able and likeable boy.  His overall record is a good one for his first term in the regular session—though I am sure it could be improved and I hope he will strive for such improvement.  Just as he is prone to a certain messiness and disorder about his desk, so I suspect he may often be rather distracting from the full excellence he might achieve.  He is quite quick and his thoughts may often get ahead of his writing with this effect.

Perhaps a little greater care would make the difference.  Both Mathematics and French would probably benefit from a more careful approach.  I trust he will work hard to make good his recent gains in Latin without letting any other subjects suffer.  For surely he is well able to do so.”

I think I’d better stop there. He got a little more critical after that.

That report was the tip of the iceberg.  Andrew Jenks talked to me daily.  He didn’t book any compromise.  He could be gruff. But I knew he respected me, I knew he cared for me and I knew he wanted the best for me.

Some years later in my final report, here’s what he said:  “John has an excellent record which he has built up steadily since he came—nor do I feel he has reached the peak of his performance.  I greatly appreciate his good influence in the school, not to mention his bearing with me even when that may have been trying. Frankly, I take this as a great compliment because John knows how important this was to me.”  Indeed I did.  Thirty-three years ago I did.  Today, I do even more.

This teacher was just one of several who gave me a positive understanding of myself…an understanding of what I might become.  He left me with the conviction that I ought to be a top achiever…indeed that I should settle for no less…that I had that responsibility.

And Andrew Jenks conveyed to me what in my life—in school and in all my years with Procter & Gamble, I have come to regard as the single most important principle of human development.  I call it the self-fulfilling prophesy…or the Pygmalion Theory.  It is something that I believe in so deeply and it is something your profession…the teaching profession influences more than any other.  

What I experienced in school has remained true in business.  Neither I nor anyone I know would be where he or she is at Procter & Gamble today if it were not for the confidence and values that associates or teachers brought to us over the years.

And that I have found comes out of only one thing—relationships…personal relationships of trust, of caring, and of high expectations.

Young people do not assimilate values by learning words or concepts of truth and justice and their definitions.  No—they learn attitudes and habits from intensely personal relationships with their families, their teachers and their close friends.  Young people don’t learn ethical principles so much as they learn to emulate ethical or unethical people.  And they learn from role models.

And teachers like you are often the most important role model for them.

Thank you for all you do.

"Beware of Declaring Premature Victory"

A STERN REMINDER:  "BEWARE OF DECLARING PREMATURE VICTORY"

 

In cleaning out some old files, I came upon a review of a book I read a decade ago:  Giants, the Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer.  An element of that review reminds me of a painful lesson I have learned over the years:  “Beware of declaring premature victory.”  I’ve seen that in business; I’ve seen it in the life of our nation; I’m seeing the risk of it today.  The extract below, which draws directly from Stauffer’s fine book, refers particularly to the belief that the Emancipation of the slaves was leading to true “freedom.”  Of course, that was not the case; the fight for freedom continues today.

 

In 1876, Douglass gave a talk to commemorate the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington.  He encapsulated there Lincoln’s principles beautifully.  “In organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict,” Lincoln had succeeded.  “Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union” he would have alienated large numbers of people “and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible.”  

 

As Douglass stood there that day, it had already become clear that “the slave was sinking back to his knees after standing in ‘brief moment in the sun’.”  Douglass’ worst fears from the Civil War years had been realized, yet he remained largely silent.  Why was this?  Like most other black and white abolitionists, Douglass saw the end of the war as the end-point of an era and of his life’s work.  It also marked the end of his continual self-making.  After the war “a strange and perhaps perverse feeling came over me.  I felt I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life; my school was broken up, my church disbanded and the congregation dispersed, never to come together again.”  His life’s work was now “among the things of memory.”  

 

It was an astonishing confession, as Stauffer says.  Douglass himself in 1852 had summarized the uses of history by saying:  “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.”  But now, the past had become the main theme.  His Freedman’s Monument speech totally ignored what was happening to blacks in the present.  They were being systematically murdered and terrorized by former Confederates, who sought to re-establish slavery in form if not name.  In this sense, he resembled a retired athlete or political leader, whose life work and great achievements were behind him, unable to re-enter the fray with the same passion and in the same way.  Freedom had represented for Douglass and most other abolitionists a glorious culmination rather than the beginning of new struggles.  Emancipation had been the “key to a promised land” but the dream soon turned into a nightmare and the promised land was nowhere in sight.  In the face of growing doubts and disappointments, Douglass (and most of his fellow abolitionists) turned to the past as a source of solace.  

 

There is a very important message for us here.  

 

Recognize that battles won are often just laying the foundation for a new battle to be won.  A message that major undertakings will not proceed on automatic pilot.  A message that new champions need to come forth to replace those that started it.  For, like it or not, energy is not unflagging despite the best effort of those involved.  This is no excuse to give up sooner than one can and should.  But it does underscore the importance of respecting that admonition from Douglass in 1852.  “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.”  I don’t agree with that in every dimension, but I do in its basic thrust.

 

Check Points for Making a Tough Decision and Deciding What to Say

On Making a Tough Decision?

1. Is it consistent with my own vision, my beliefs, and my understanding of the facts?

2. Am I doing what I believe is morally and ethically right? Does it feel right? (If it doesn't feel right, improbably isn't).

3. Would I fee;l comfortable telling my wife, Francie, and my children what I have done and why?

On Deciding What to Say? *

1. Is it kind?

2. Is it true?

3. Is it necessary?

4. Does it promise  to advance the purpose of  my organization?

*With thanks to my good friend, Angela Schunk.

The Relationships Which Have Underpinned Our Prosperity and Safety Are Under Threat by Our President

Column by David Leonhardt—New York Times—6/11-2018

 

"The alliance between the United States and Western Europe has accomplished great things. It won two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Then it expanded to include its former enemies and went on to win the Cold War, help spread democracy and build the highest living standards the world has ever known.

 

President Trump is trying to destroy that alliance.

 

Is that how he thinks about it? Who knows?  It’s impossible to get inside his head and divine his strategic goals, if he even has long-term goals. But put it this way:  If a president of the United States were to sketch out a secret, detailed plan to break up the Atlantic alliance, that plan would bear a striking resemblance to Trump’s behavior.  

 

It would involve outward hostility to the leaders of Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Japan. Specifically, it would involve picking fights over artificial issues—not to win big concessions for the United States, but to create conflict for the sake of it.”

 

 

This is a horrible betrayal of the leadership the United States has provided over the last 70 years to make the world a more prosperous and safer place. 

 

As Ben Steil writes in his book, The Marshall Plan:  Dawn of the Cold War:

 

"Forty years after Dean Acheson’s observation in the second half of the 1940s on the need for Washington to have allies, its early Cold War alliances were still intact, while Moscow’s were in tatters.  Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had in October 1947 written to Vandenberg, who passed his words on to Marshall, that ‘the recovery of Western Europe [was] a twenty-five to fifty-year proposition and…the aid which we extend now and in the next three or four years will in the long future result in our having strong friends abroad.’ This insight was keen and important.  Containment successfully navigated between appeasement and war for four decades, and the Marshall Plan played a principal role in bonding the West together for the struggle.  Many of the institutions we now take for granted as natural elements of the liberal postwar order—in particular, the European Union, NATO, and the World Trade Organization—were forged under U.S. leadership during the early Marshall years.”

 

*****

 

The U.S. must not abdicate the position of providing respectful, collaborative leadership for these organizations and treaties which have underpinned the relative prosperity and peace we have had since World War II.  President Trump's behavior threatens to do just that by undermining the trust our allied leaders have in us. Our Congressional and other leaders must speak up.  Life is all about relationships, and good relationships have to be based on trust. We never have nor will we ever always agree with our allies, but we have to treat them as we would want to be treated, with respect.  

 

Trump_USWesternEurope061218

A Source of Encouragement: Corporations Stepping Up to Advance Social and Environmental Goals

We are seeing something important happen. Consider these recent news reports:

·     “Despite the President’s Paris pull-out, U.S Companies Pursue Clean Energy.” (NYT)

“Walmart has installed on-site solar panels in the parking lots of at least 350 stores.  Dozens of Fortune 500 companies, from tech giants like Apple and Google to Walmart and General Motors, are voluntarily investing billions of dollars in new wind and solar projects to power their operations.”

·     “Target pledges to get salaries to $15 an hour by 2020.”

·     “Starbucks offers paid sick leave and stock grants to baristas.”

  

        Starbucks closes 8,000 stores to provide their employees “implicit bias” training.

·     Walmart partners with three universities to offer associate and bachelor degrees to 1.4 million part-time, full-time and salaried Walmart and Sam’s Club employees in business supply and sales management. Walmart will cover the cost of tuition, books and fees.  Employees will pay only $1 per day for the duration of their study.

  

·     Procter & Gamble launches the major “Love over Bias” advertising campaign that directly takes on the issue of bias.

·     Procter & Gamble creates the #LikeAGirl movement addressing gender bias by building girls’ confidence which often wanes at puberty. The videos are viewed 76 million times globally, with 4.5 billion impressions. 

·     Walmart ends sale of sporting rifles, including AR-15s. Increases the age restriction for purchase of firearms and ammunition to 21.  Bans sales of bump stocks and similar accessories.  Goes beyond federal laws on background checks. Federal law permits sales following a background check if an answer has not been received in three business days, Walmart policy prohibits the sale until an actual approval is given.

These are a few of many examples I am seeing on almost a daily basis of corporations are stepping up to take action on social and environmental issues in a way that I have not seen before.

This is especially important and perhaps partly explained by the fact that implementing policy change at the federal is too often stymied by political gridlock.  No wonder surveys show a continuing decline in people’s trust in government.  Pew surveys show us that the percentage of respondents trusting government “to do what is right just about always or most of the time” dropped from almost 80% in the mid-1960s to 18% today.  

To be sure, the conviction that business should play an active role in improving the quality of life is not entirely new. No one stated this more succinctly than Roberto Goizueta, former Chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company.  Decades ago, he said, “When we were once perceived as simply providing services, selling products and employing people, business now shares in much of the responsibility for our global quality of life.”

That same conviction has motivated one Procter & Gamble CEO after another.  

Still, why are we seeing more explicit actions to do that today?  I think there are several reasons.  

To a greater extent than ever, company employees and their consumers are expecting, even demanding, it.  Social media is making it easier than ever for them to register that expectation.  A recent study by Edelman Research revealed that 75% of those polled felt that a “company can take specific action that will both increase the economic and social conditions where it operates.”

Year after year, I have seen an increasing number of students whom we talk with on campuses ask, “What is your company doing for the environment and for the community?”  Of course, these students are focused on getting a good job.  But, more than ever, they are concerned about social and environmental issues.

Consumers are concerned too.  We see that, for example, in the increasing popularity of “fair trade” products.

Corporate leaders are increasingly seeing the often unexpected, benefits that arise from “doing the right thing” in advancing social and environmental values.  That has been the case for me.  

One example goes all the way back to 1989.  I had traveled to Hunt Valley, Maryland to meet with George Bunting, CEO of Noxell, the home of the leading cosmetic brand in North America, Cover Girl. We were there to express our interest in partnering with Cover Girl.  It was a low-key approach; we weren’t proposing a particular form of partnership.

After exchanging pleasantries, George Bunting’s response almost blew me out of my chair.  

“John,” he said, “you’ve come at an opportune time.  We have concluded that our company does not have the resources to achieve the potential which Cover Girl deserves.  And we have concluded that Procter & Gamble is the only company with which we would want to join.”

I had to restrain myself.  If I allowed my full enthusiasm to show, I feared the asking price might expand by several multiples.

Bunting asked me if I would like to know why P&G was the onlycompany they would choose to merge with.  I said, “of course.”  “There are three reasons,” he responded.  “The first is that we know that you know how to build brands. The second is, we admire the way you take care of your people.  And the third, we have seen how strongly you support your communities.” 

P&G’s values came back to benefit us in a totally unexpected way.  

We went on to acquire Noxell. It came at a fair price, but there was no auction.  Noxell talked to no other company than P&G.  P&G’s values and actions to support those values helped make this possible.

Two years later, in 1991, I encountered another demonstration of this.  We had been searching for the best site for what would be our first plant in Central and Eastern Europe.  We decided on a plant in Rakovnik, a small town located about 100 kilometers from Prague.  

Our challenge was that our key competitors also wanted this plant.  Our product supply experts visited the plant; so did those of our competitors. After several months of negotiation, P&G won the bid.  

I visited the plant about a month. As I was about to leave, the plant manager came up to me and asked if I would like to know why he had strongly recommended to the government officials (it was a state-owned plant) that P&G be acquirer.  I told him I would love to know.

When our competitors had visited the plant, he said, they had focused almost exclusively on how they could reduce costs and eliminate jobs.  The P&G people were different.  They, too, had emphasized the need for productivity, but their primary emphasis was on how the plant could reduce its environmental impact and ensure the workers’ safety and improve product quality.  It was that difference in emphasis that led him to recommend P&G as the buyer.  I don’t know to what degree the plant manager’s recommendation influenced the government’s decision, but I suspect it played a part. 

Again, P&G’s commitment to societal and environmental goals led to an unexpected benefit.

To be clear, nothing is going to supplant consumers’ demand for products and services that provide better performance and represent good values.  And nothing will take the place for the long-term success of a business than its being growing and profitable.  But that is no longer enough, at least not in the minds of many, if not most, of the leading corporate executives who I know in this country.

I don’t want to appear to be naïve.   We still see improper business practices; we always will.

We also continue to see a fairly high level of distrust for business in general.  In the Edelman research study I referenced earlier, only 52% of respondents said they “trust business to do what is right.”  But that can change, and I think it will change as consumers and employees see more businesses taking action to achieve a sustaining, successful business anda sustaining, healthy environment in which they operate.

As always, balanced consideration of our responsibilities is critical.  We have to provide products and services of superior performance and value.  We have to provide places of good employment.  I wasn’t surprised to read that respondents to the Edelman survey I referenced earlier listed the “best ways business can build a better future is to pay fair wages, offer better benefits and create more jobs.” All of that requires a healthy growing business.

Still, I believe we are increasingly seeing that businesses are recognizing they have a critical role, as Roberto Goizueta counseled decades ago, “to improve our global quality of life.”

Business must do this as a partner with non-profit organizations and governments, demonstrating that progress is not only possible but can be made to happen.  I find this to be very encouraging.

"Looking Back-Looking Forward: Reflections and Recollections"--Personal Essays

I recently published a series of essays and reflections on personal experiences, beliefs and readings which, in one way or another, have significantly influenced my life.

 

They include essays on my time with the Walt Disney Company and at Yale University; my battle with cancer; the role of religion in my life; and what I describe as a “Personal Model for Living.” 

 

A few of these essays capture blogs which I’ve posted on this site over the past several years. 

 

I’ve tried to capture my view of our responsibility to ourselves and to each other, particularly the young.  I include direct extracts from and reflections on the writings of my favorite authors, as well as our relations with other countries, particularly Russia, with which I have had a long relationship.

 

While the content is diverse and eclectic, I hope readers will find threaded throughout a commitment to service, to respecting and helping others and to the values of integrity, tolerance, justice, courage and simply never giving up.

******************************************

 

The essay collection is available on Amazon and other book-sellers.

 

 

The Role of the Corporation:  To Perform and Serve At The Very Highest Level In The Following Five Areas 

I wrote this in 1991. I would not change a word today

  There are a number of inseparable requirements.  By inseparable, I mean that no one of them will be possible in the long-term without the others.  They include the following elements:

1.     Providing superior performance and value to consumers through our brands.  That is the fundamental reason why we exist.  Furthermore, providing superior performance and value is the sine qua non of having leadership and growing businesses which, in turn, are the basis for delivering leading profit levels and growth and attracting superior people.

2.     Providing superior financial results.  This requires superior levels of profits and return on equity, as well as better growth versus best of competition.  This is essential to provide the basis for continued growth; to attract and retain the strongest people; and to reward shareholders, an important number of whom are our own employees.  Furthermore, superior financial performance and growth, over time, is the ultimate test whether we are indeed performing at the highest level in terms of consumer satisfaction and operational effectiveness and efficiency.

3.     Providing a superior environment for top quality people.  This is a requirement in its own right and a necessity in order to attract strong people without whom the first two objectives would be unreachable.

4.     Conducting the business in line with the right values.  I define these values as:

o   Striving always to be the best in whatever we do.  Leadership.

o   Operating with integrity and with honesty in all relationships; and doing what is right by the spirit and letter of the law.

o   Respect for people – working to develop their individual strengths; dedication to helping each person develop to his/her strongest.

o   Innovation; constant quest for improvement; doing better tomorrow than what we are today.

5.      Providing service to the communities in which we live.  This recognizes the opportunity and responsibility we have as individuals and as a corporate body to be a force for good in creating improvements in our communities that are essential for the world, including the world in which we do business.  We need to determine where we can add maximum value in the context of recognizing our primary responsibilities for the health of our business, without which our ability to contribute to the community would not exist.

Key Cultural Values:

1.     Being our best.  Leadership.  In whatever we are doing.  In market share.  In financial returns.

2.     Superior service to the consumer – through our brands.  Fundamental underpinning.

3.     Innovation and improvements as ways of life.  Continued improvement.

4.     Respect for other people.  From this flows many things;

·      Respect for diversity.

·      Focus on developing other people.

·      Focus on recruiting and retention.

·      Deep commitment for people having a fulfilling career, as right in itself and vital to have a place that the best people will want to work in.

5.     Doing the right thing for the long term.

6.     Integrity.  Fairness.

7.     Acting in good faith.  Being straightforward and open and honest.