A Quote by John T. Chambers
I think at least my philosophy of leadership is you focus more on the areas you have to improve or the mistakes than you do on your successes. And that's just how I am in real life. I don't want to let down my customers, my employees, my shareholders.
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Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it’s none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business.
We need to reexamine and reassess the purpose of the corporation, and go back to the idea that senior leadership has responsibilities not just to shareholders but also to customers and employees.
Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.
Real teams are much more likely to flourish if leaders aim their sights on performance results that balance the needs of customers, employees, and shareholders.
I am always asking myself how I can improve the lives of my customers, my colleagues, my shareholders, my family and my friends.
We want to be inclusive. We want to have our shareholders, our employees, our customers, whether they are Democrat, Republican, Green or Libertarian, to feel comfortable with how we're doing business. And so that tends to be apolitical. People say, 'No, no, I just simply shouldn't get involved in politics.'
I am convinced that companies should put staff first, customers second and shareholders third - ultimately that's in the best interest of customers and shareholders.
I'm a spreadsheet guy. But you get to that moment of truth, and it has nothing to do with a spreadsheet. You've got to factor in what your competitors are doing, what the technology is doing, what your shareholders want, what your employees want, what your customers want, and you've got to make it happen sometimes.
The CEO announces that the purpose of the firm is to improve the lives of the customers and the lives of the firm's stakeholders and the quality of the planet. The company will give fair compensation to all the stakeholders and the CEO will not earn more than 20 times the median income of his employees. He will want his employees to rate him, just as he also has to rate them.
The lesson for businesses is you are dealing with real people. Those are your customers, those are your employees, those are your bosses, and the better you understand how real people tick, the more successfully you will be able to accomplish your goals.
To some people, I am kind of a Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes. I've made some bad ones, but fortunately, the successes have come along fast enough to cover up the mistakes. When you go to bat as many times as I do, and continually improve upon your mistakes, you're bound to get a good average.
The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that's how long it's going to take, guys.
So to the best we can, what we do is focus on creating value for others, and how do we do that? We do it by trying to produce products and services that our customers will value more than their alternatives, and not just their alternatives today, but what the alternatives will be in the future. We try to more efficiently use resources than our competitors, and constantly improve in that, and we try to do the best job we can in creating a safe environment, and environmental excellence, and constantly improve at that.
Customers are still setting the technology agenda. Not just you, our customers, but your customers as well. What more and more are telling you is what kind of services they need, and how and when they want those services delivered to them. And in fact, that is just the beginning.
There are always things to improve on. I want to improve on my defense, and you can never be a perfect hitter. I want to focus on just playing more and being able to improve on all parts of my game.
Customers first, employees second, and shareholders third.
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