Embedding F.A.I.T.H. in Your Business

Fidelity

Loyalty to your mission, your commitments and the people who help you deliver them.

Fidelity is about remaining steadfast.

It means staying true to the purpose and value proposition of the business even when market conditions change or short-term pressure makes compromise tempting.

That does not mean refusing to evolve. Good businesses change. Fidelity simply ensures that change does not casually discard the principles, standards and relationships on which the business was built.

• Honour important commitments to employees and customers.
• Invest in the development of people rather than treating them as disposable capacity.
• Protect the standards that make your business distinctive.
• Ensure loyalty is demonstrated by leadership as well as expected from employees.

Accountability

Owning your actions, responsibilities and outcomes, especially when things do not go to plan.

Accountability bridges the gap between intentions and results.

Without it, strategies become suggestions, deadlines become negotiable and responsibility can become remarkably difficult to locate when performance disappoints.

Healthy accountability is not a blame system.

Blame asks, “Whose fault was this?” Accountability asks, “What happened, what was our part in it, and what will we do differently?”

• Define responsibility before work begins.
• Agree on outcomes rather than vague activity.
• Discuss missed expectations early and constructively.
• Improve systems as well as addressing individual mistakes.

Integrity

Doing the right thing when no one is watching, particularly when doing so might cost you something.

Integrity means aligning the actions of the business with its stated moral compass.

It is demonstrated in the opportunities you decline, the shortcuts you refuse to take, the promises you will not make and the standards you continue to maintain when compromising them would be profitable.

Reputations are built slowly and can be damaged very quickly. The safest reputation-management strategy is therefore not sophisticated public relations.

It is making fewer decisions you would be uncomfortable defending publicly.

• Ensure sales and marketing promises match actual delivery capability.
• Do not conceal material limitations from clients or stakeholders.
• Apply important standards consistently, including to senior people.
• Refuse short-term wins that create long-term ethical or reputational risk.

Transparency

Open communication, clear processes and enough relevant information for people to understand what is happening and why.

Transparency removes unnecessary guesswork and anxiety from the workplace.

When important information is withheld without good reason, people rarely assume the most reassuring explanation. They fill the gaps themselves.

Transparency does not mean every employee should have access to every confidential document.

It means providing the people who need information with enough relevant context to understand goals, performance, challenges and major decisions.

• Explain the reasoning behind significant executive decisions.
• Make relevant goals and operating measures visible.
• Communicate difficult changes before rumours fill the vacuum.
• Be clear about what is known, unknown and still being decided.

Honesty

Ensuring decisions are based on what is true, not what is easiest or most comfortable to hear.

Honesty forms the bedrock of useful communication.

A leadership team operating from filtered or sanitised information will eventually make poor decisions, regardless of how talented its individual members may be.

The challenge for leaders is therefore not simply to tell the truth themselves.

It is to create an environment in which other people feel able to tell them the truth as well.

• Encourage candid but respectful feedback in every direction.
• Reward people for surfacing bad news early.
• Separate thoughtful disagreement from disloyalty.
• Challenge optimistic assumptions before they become expensive.