Retired Army Col. Mike Peck is talking up values all over the government--at the Army and the departments of Justice, Veterans Affairs, Interior and Labor, among other places. In fact, Peck will talk to just about anybody who'll listen. Recently he even chatted about values with an excited Treasury Department employee in line to buy a Powerball lottery ticket.
Peck, a consultant with the Bellevue, Wash.-based Lebow Companies, is preaching a management technique called the "shared values process," which Peck's boss, Rob Lebow, describes in a recent book, Lasting Change (John Wiley).
Under the process, managers measure their employees' attitudes toward the workplace and then try to improve those attitudes by making several core values--including honesty, trust, openness and risk-taking--the checklist upon which people make their decisions. Peck says when private-sector companies do business based on those values, they not only see employee morale go up, they see higher retention rates, more innovation and bigger profits.
Peck's theory is that people in government want to make a difference, but their workplace environments often don't let them.
"I can't think of a single person I've run into in a government agency who doesn't think they're a hero," Peck says. "But when you ask them about their co-workers and their bosses, that's another story."
The most important value, Peck says, is trust. Fifteen years ago, Peck considered himself a good soldier, but only an average Army officer. Then he was transferred to Honduras, where he served under a commander known as "the Ayatollah." Peck admired the Ayatollah, who trusted him with numerous responsibilities and did not constantly look over his shoulder to check on his work. After four months in Honduras, Peck was giving a briefing to some visiting generals when the Ayatollah interrupted him, looked at the generals, and said, "Can you find me more guys like Mike Peck?"
"That was the turning point in my life," Peck says. His boss had trusted him, empowered him and praised him for doing a good job.
The actions of government leaders often don't reflect those values, Peck laments. Many agencies confine their core values to paper, letting complacency and distrust permeate the agency's culture. But when employees are encouraged to think about values before they make a decision, he argues, managers will see their organizations' performance improve.
"Leaders often talk values, but they don't walk the talk," Peck says. "None of the other management techniques--total quality management, etc.--will work unless leaders start using the values they talk about."
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