Company Core Value: 4 Legs of a Chair

For many years, I have been an advocate for this core value in business.  It goes like this:  We only want a business that is fair and reasonable for all parties involved: Our Customers.  Our Employees.  Our Vendors.  And our Owners. 

Each of these can be thought of as a leg of a chair, and each leg has to be strong and straight for the chair to work well.  One weak leg causes the whole chair to fail.

We want every leg to get a fair deal, to reap the rewards of our company’s success, and to share the burden of our challenges. This is a business we want to encourage at every turn. We want every leg of the chair to come away being grateful they got involved in business with the other legs. 

Let me tell you a story that helped me understand the importance of promoting this way of doing business.  Many years ago, I was part owner of another business, and we had an elderly landlord named Mr. Porter.  Occasionally, he would tell us about the businesses on his property in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  He told about one particular business—a hardwood treating business that sold wood by the truckload. 

The owner of the business told Mr. Porter that he never made money cutting and treating wood.  He made it delivering the wood.  “The way I make money is to break the trucker,” he would say.  “There is always some dumb trucker willing to haul wood at a loss.  They don’t know better and they charge too little.  We’ll use them until they wise up or go broke, then we’ll find some other dummy.”

Think about that a little bit.  What an awful way to be in business, only succeeding by breaking your vendors.  I’ve seen other businesses doing a similar thing by short-changing their employees whenever they had a chance.  I’ve seen businesses go under because of employees cheating the company.  We can all think of companies (and people) that are like this, desperately grabbing more for themselves with no regard for others they may hurt. 

I’ve also observed that these types of people and companies almost always end up with less in the end.

I do not want to be part of a business that regularly runs this way.  And I don't want to be an advisor for a business that runs this way.  Instead, I want to be part of building goodwill and success among all legs of the chair.

This way of business requires a two-way street of building goodwill.  As an owner you have to try to look out for good situations for all parties,  In turn, you should expect the same from your employees, vendors, and customers. This way of business works.  It also lets you sleep well at night and celebrate with those who help you succeed.

Yes, this is an ideal.  In practice, it is never perfect, but every reasonable effort should be made to get there.  You will not regret it if you adopt it as a core value of your own.