Editorial
Transparency: Act One
The word transparency figures prominently in the vocabulary of today’s CEOs and the rest of us worker bees. It has become a battle cry for demanding accountability and making things right. In other circumstances, it quietly directs communication and information exchange among those who recognize the power of inclusion and team-building, be it in business or society.
Henrik Ibsen, the noted Norwegian playwright, addressed the issue of transparency in his 1882 play “The Enemy of the People,” in which truth and the common good are pitted against a society corrupted by greed. Sound familiar? It led Ibsen to later observe:
“A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”
Today, relationships between executive management and boards of directors have sobered because of aggressive enforcement of Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. If one thinks of transparency (being transparent) as an act varying in degree along a continuum, we would place compliance (Sarbanes-Oxley…you will obey) at one end with Mr. Ibsen’s ideal at the other. One mandates bright line action against negative behavior while the other challenges us to achieve greatness. Let’s look at an example from the sunny side of this continuum.
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Scotch tape was invented in 1930 by a young 3M engineer named Richard Drew. Little did Drew know that his invention, along with thousands of others to follow, would be responsible for 3M’s growth into one of the largest corporations in the world – and one universally recognized for balancing research, product development and profitability with an abiding duty to community both inside and outside the company. It is fitting that 3M, responsible for putting the word “transparent” into our everyday vocabulary, also provides us with a clear example of “Ibsen-esque” transparency in terms of both corporate and community relationships.
Visit 3M’s website, click on the “Our Company” link and you will arrive at a page containing a broad array of content areas under banner headings for Company Information, Careers, Investor Relations, Press, Business Conduct Policies and finally three areas of values-driven strategic focus to 3M (as a whole) that steer the all-important work of creating products and profitability.
The areas cited are “Sustainability, Diversity and Community Giving.” Moving from left to right (and top to bottom) the first information you access are 3M’s stated values within the “Who We Are” section:
Our Values (3M)
- Provide investors an attractive return through sustained, quality growth.
- Satisfy customers with superior quality, value and service.
- Respect our social and physical environment.
- Be a company employees are proud to be part of.
These four statements form the nuclear core of 3M’s reason for being and its ongoing strategy development. They serve as the bedrock upon which all else is based. They resonate everywhere 3M speaks of its actions…ongoing or intended. In short, they rule.
Finally, moving over to the “Sustainability” link on the top far right side of the page we find a complete reveal of all the components of 3M strategy beginning with, you guessed it, a retelling of the values of the organization as lead-in to 3M’s strategic elements for keeping its boat afloat and on course.
Leave it to a corporation whose name stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing to allow an outsider to bore down into the guts of its strategy, all (and I mean all) policies and procedures and related performance results that left this visitor wondering if I had stumbled into some password-protected site by accident. Of course not! But I did stumble into a powerful example of transparency in action in corporate America. The act of providing information does not, in and of itself, ensure that 3M (or any other organization) will behave ethically or comply appropriately. It simply says you be the judge.
Take a closer look by going to 3M’s site at: