Putting Values First– Procter & Gamble’s New CEO Charts a New Path

This July, P&G’s new CEO Bob McDonald took office, and since, has launched the company’s new mission… to be guided by Values, Principles &  Purpose first.  He believes, and teaches his company to believe in putting people –heart, mind, body– first and from this, profits will come.  This is of course, a refreshing (and rare) outlook in light of the scandals, cut-throat capitalism, and unethical business dealings we as a nation have seen unfolding over the last few years… quite a sobering commentary on our society that this type of model of actually caring about people, is the exception and not the norm.

Envision a nation or society where the goal or main concern was caring about other human beings–caring about their wellbeing, caring about the poor, caring about helping others vs putting self first to make an easy profit.  If this were the case, there would most likely be no Enron, no mortgage crisis, probably no economic downturn at all.

Of course, P&G still cares about making a profit, as the measurement or goal outcome from putting hearts and people first is, the bottom-line– increasing the dollars spent by consumers. Still, to learn about, and hopefully model our own companies after the P&G model is crucial and valuable to truly changing the upside-down values of our society’s companies. 

P&G’s identiftied core values are…Integrity, Leadership, Ownership, Passion for Winning, Trust.  Do you or does your company have core values that are followed? What about a purpose?  To read more about P&G’s values and mission, go here: http://www.pg.com/company/who_we_are/ppv.shtml

And a good article about P&G’s value-led system by Rosabeth Moss Kanter that is worth reading can be found here: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/kanter/2009/09/fall-like-a-lehman-rise-like-a.html  Although,there was an example of P&G’s values-put-first given here where Kanter recounts P&G”s work in Brasil, where, spurred by a slipping  market, P&G employees took note of some of the realities of Brazilian families’ lives and noted that they spent too much time washing cloth diapers by hands, so of course, introduced disposable diapers to the consumers.  While I see the value in saving time, (and increasing P&G’s Brasil market profit), what about the enormous environmental down-side of changing an entire market from cloth to plastic diapers?  I was just wondering about if this really was a positive change for Brasil’s families and country, or, if this just appeared to be a good change but long-term would have negative consequences for the environment, health and well-being of Brasil and its people.  When a company has such far-reaching impact on whole groups and nations, there must be thoughtfulness in every choice made.  Your thoughts?