Peter Posner – World Alliance of YMCAs President
Speech at YMCA Australia National Convention, Saturday 28 November, 2014
Living the Values: from Words to Action.
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you at your
AGM. It's really great to be with you here in Darwin for what is my first formal
function as the President of World YMCA. Thanks for having the courage to
invite me to speak to you all!
If any of you were lucky enough to attend the World Council in Colorado
earlier this year, and were kind enough to have listened to my acceptance
speech after I was elected President, you will have heard me throw out a
challenge. The challenge was in three parts. The first part was to do
something new for Youth Empowerment, which is the key component of the
World YMCA's strategy called OUR WAY. I also asked you to tell someone
about your new action, so that you can encourage them to do something new.
But throughout the challenge, I asked you to use YMCA values.
It's those YMCA values that I want to talk to you about today. My talk is not a
sort of company policy speech originated in Switzerland by World YMCA staff.
It's totally based on my own thoughts and experience.
My experience comes from over 30 years as a volunteer with the YMCA. I've
been fortunate to have been Trustee (Board Director) at a few local YMCAs,
and indeed I'm still chair of my city YMCA. I've been the English National Chair,
and the European Area Treasurer then the European President. On top of that
I've had a total of 12 years experience at World YMCA level. During all this
time, I have visited YMCAs in over 30 countries.
Generally speaking, the YMCA in each country is often different from the next
one in terms of structure, activity, resources, public profile and so on. Of
course, what they all have in common is the desire to work as best as they can
for the young people in their local communities. With that diversity of
function and diversity of their communities, a common theme must be, the
excellent standard of any work being carried out. In other words, in line with
YMCA values.
But, what are YMCA values?
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SLIDE: CORE VALUES: WHAT, WHY, HOW
Let's explore what is at the core of those values? Firstly I'll try to illustrate
what I mean by core values. Then I'll talk about why you should use them.
And lastly I'll talk about how you make them work for you. Or to put that
another way, living your values. Transforming them from mere words into
your everyday business. And I'll share a little about what we've done in
England in this area of work.
SLIDE: WHAT
What are core values?
A definition I found3 says these are the values which:
SLIDE: VALUES DEFINITION
"form the foundation on which we perform our work and conduct ourselves".
They are so fundamental to the way you operate that they rarely change
despite changes in the organisation, or changes to the environment in which
the organisation operates.
Maybe the easiest way to explain this is to give some examples.
One of the best family holidays we have had was when my wife and I took our
two daughters, who were teenagers at the time, to Walt Disney World in
Florida. We looked forward to it very much but we all had very high
expectations. Friends had been and had loved it, we'd all grown up with Disney
of course and had fallen in love with many of the characters in the movies.
But here's the thing. Why would we spend a small fortune travelling to
another continent to enter a world of make-believe? A place where a main
feature were the rides which common sense tells you not to risk your life on,
whilst being thrown upside down at high speed?
SLIDE OF DISNEY RIDE
The reason you do it is because you trust them. That trust is based on what
you've heard, what others have told you and - being a good YMCA person - the
risk assessment you've probably done at least in your mind. You just know the
Disney Corporation will look after not only you, but your family - and give you a
great time, full of excitement, and you'll live to tell the tale afterwards.
SLIDE WALT DISNEY COMPANY
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And here are the values Disney employs. I've highlighted some key words,
such as Ethical, Responsible, Respectful. They aren't action words, they are
actually attitudes of mind. Reading them, I think they are the sort of values
and standards of a place where I'd like to work - or at least go on holiday there.
Let's bring it closer to home.
When I was at the World Council, I was lucky enough to visit the nearby YMCA
of Boulder Valley.
SLIDE YMCA OF BOULDER VALLEY
We went to two centres. The first was a day camp in a local school. As soon as
we got out of the bus, I knew I'd like it when we saw the parking sign, which
didn't say that you weren't welcome for more than a few seconds, but:
CLICK SLIDE HUG AND GO PICTURE
"Hug and Go". The parking bay was the place to give your children a hug before
they went to camp. As we approached the door, the children were all lined up
in what they call a "Tunnel of Love".
CLICK SLIDE TUNNEL OF LOVE PICTURE
All the children gave us a high five as we entered, which made them - and us laugh out loud with happiness.
CLICK SLIDE CHILDREN AT PLAY PICTURE
The children were welcoming, the staff were great and the person in charge,
Scott Downing, was inspirational.
To the extent that even the formal paperwork he issued us with came in a
folder decorated by a child which said "welcome to summer camp", rather
than a glossy corporate thing.
CLICK SLIDE FOLDER PICTURE
I particularly remember that. In fact I still have it.
The CEO is Chris Coker, and here he is. You can see we got on well!
SLIDE CHRIS COKER
One of Chris' many moving stories was about a father who tragically died last
winter from a heart attack on a ski slope, in front of his whole family - three
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generations including their two young children. When they read about it in
the news[paper, the YMCA staff actively searched for that family and invited
the kids to come to the YMCA Camps to help them, and through them, their
family, to get over their tragic loss.
The mother was worried that she couldn't afford to send them to camp. Don't
worry, Chris said. We'll pay. If you do find you can afford to pay us one day,
then great. If you happen to move away and then find you have the money,
pay the local YMCA. If there isn't a YMCA, donate the money to a church.
The mother trusted Chris and the YMCA with her two sons, who did come to
camp, where they had a very valuable time. That's the sort of YMCA I'd like to
be associated with. They have the right attitude and put it into practice. The
right values. They are trustworthy.
Let's bring it even nearer to home. What about if I came to live in Australia
and wanted to find a place to bring my Granddaughter to learn to swim?
SLIDE YMCA AUSTRALIA
Would I trust her with you? Do I know your safety record? What about what
we at home call your "Safeguarding" policies (protecting vulnerable people)?
What is your reputation? For example, do you operate to the highest possible
standards of child protection, without compromise? Do you have effective and
more than adequate numbers of life guards? Will she be treated with respect?
Is it clean in the changing rooms? Is the water nice to swim in?
All of these issues, in some way or other, are controlled by your value base.
It’s more than doing the right thing. It’s doing it in the right way.
SLIDE: WHY?
Let's talk about why you should adopt and use core values.
When I gave examples of Core Values earlier, I used the word "Trust" several
times. I had trust in Disney, and in the YMCA of Boulder Valley. Trust is earned
over time, but it is very fragile and can be lost in a fleeting moment.
A lot of research has taken place about the value of adopting core standards.
One paper I've read1 looked at hundreds of global companies, small to large,
and compared their core values ad how these values related to their Corporate
Risks. Of the top 20 risks which they identified,
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SLIDE: CORPORATE RISK
Quote: "more than half involved: corporate reputation; brand; or relationships
(with suppliers, customers and employees) - all elements that companies in
this survey cited as being strongly affected by values".
By risk, I mean a very wide range of issues including financial, reputational,
sustainability, competitiveness, staff retention . . . the list goes on.
Now, if you were to compile a risk register of your YMCA - is that standard
practice here to have a risk register? - I wonder how many of your risks would
be affected by values.
I tried out this exercise on the risk register from my own YMCA:
SLIDE: YMCAD RISK REGISTER 1
Here is the actual register from I think our May board meeting. The actual
items on the list are not relevant to you, so don't worry about reading the
small print. The point is this:
SLIDE: YMCAD RISK REGISTER 2
Interestingly, over half would be affected either directly or indirectly by
whether or not our values are upheld. Which ties in closely with the research I
just quoted.
What can we do about reducing those risks? Well, a starting point is to look at
how effective your values are to you. A Director of a major global telecoms
company is quoted as saying2:
SLIDE: REDUCING RISK
"By making values fundamental to your organisation . . . you can reduce risk in
most situations". And he wouldn't have glibly said that without evidence to
back it up.
That Director of the telecoms company went on to say:
SLIDE: IF YOU DON'T ....
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"If you don't have a culture of ethical decision making to begin with, all the
controls and compliance regulations you care to deploy, won't necessarily
prevent ethical misconduct".
It's all about the way you go about conducting your business. It's whether
your YMCA inspires trust around those critical corporate risks of corporate
reputation, brand, and relationships.
Critically, adhering to your core values makes important decisions easier to
take. Let me say that again. It makes important decisions easier to take. And I
can confirm that from real issues within my own YMCA, where we needed the
courage to make the necessary - but challenging – changes. Sticking to our
values helped us to not only make the correct decision, but also positively
influenced the way we went about implementing the decision.
The approach to a values driven ethical way of working starts with the CEO.
CLICK SLIDE CEO 85%
Research shows that 85% of employees within companies - in other words,
almost everyone - expects the CEO to reinforce core values and to reinforce
the company's ability to act on those values.
Put another way, a glossy brochure or website with your values on it is simply
not enough. Who remembers Enron, the petrochemical giant which failed in
2001? They apparently had one of the best videos on ethics and integrity.
They allegedly even had a 64 page book on Enron ethics. Clearly nobody
followed them.
Compare that to the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson who have
what they call their "Credo" (from the Latin meaning "I believe").
SLIDE: J&J Credo
The Credo was written in 1943 by the then Chairman Robert Wood Johnson, to
reflect the sincere values the leaders of the company held at that time. The
company says their Credo, and I quote, "challenges us to put the needs and
well-being of the people we serve first." They say it is "more than a moral
compass"; it is a "recipe for business success". Does it work? Well, Johnson &
Johnson are consistently in the world's top ranking as a company, and #1
within pharmaceuticals. They are successful.
SLIDE: SUCCESSFUL ORGANSIATIONS
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It's critical that you understand the difference between what should never
change, and what should be open to change; between what is genuinely sacred
and what isn't.
CLICK SLIDE SUCCESSFUL ORGANISTIONS
In a changing world, the business strategies and practices of a successful
organisation endlessly adapt to be relevant for today and tomorrow.
However, they have core values and a core purpose that remain unchanged.
So how do we put core values into practice?
SLIDE: HOW?
Wouldn't it be great if all of you here in Australia, and indeed the whole YMCA
Movement, were to think about working to commonly held, first class, core,
YMCA values. Ones that are more than your moral compass; they are your
own recipe for success.
As a YMCA Movement, your strategies and practices will be always moving to
keep abreast of opportunities. However, you will have core values and a core
purpose that won't change. It perhaps will form part of your Vision and
Mission.
SLIDE YMCAs OF AUSTRALIA VALUES
But, if you were to revisit them, where do we start to ensure they are fit for
purpose?
SLIDE: IDENTIFY YOUR OWN CORE VALUES
The starting point is to clearly identify your own core values. They are usually
something that you naturally do, often without thinking about it. They should
be a signpost for all your thinking and actions. There should be only a handful
of them.
Test them with brutal honesty to define which values are really, truly central to
your being.
CLICK SLIDE CORE VALUES
To test your core values, consider what you would do if circumstances changed
and you were penalised for holding onto a core value. Would you still keep it?
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If you can’t honestly answer yes, then the value is not core and should be
dropped from consideration.
An example of this might be deciding to work with the indigenous population.
Some people might object and cause you grief. Would this put you off? If so,
it's not a core value.
And once you have decided on your core values, use them. Apply them to all
of your YMCAs to see if they are worthy of using the name of YMCA. The
standards and ethics you have in one YMCA must be excellent, and as good as
those in every other YMCA.
I remember some 20 years ago we in England had a safeguarding issue at a
YMCA when the CEO was on the front pages of the newspapers, not for the
right reasons. It didn't just affect that YMCA, it was a reputational risk for the
whole national movement. You and I might know we run an independent unit
in our home town, but the public don't know that. If it is unsafe in one YMCA,
is it unsafe in them all? Action needed to be taken, and seen to be taken. As I
said when I started, trust is very fragile.
At this point, I want to bring in our brand. By brand I mean much more than
our logo, which to an extent is just a small part of our branding. I like this
definition of brand:
SLIDE BRAND DEFINITION,
"Brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room".
In England, we have just completed a branding exercise. Whilst it was
expensive and probably didn't tell us much we didn't already know, for me it
has been one of the most important pieces of work done nationally for some
time.
SLIDE YMCA ENGLAND
We have a new logo, which some love but many don't. But that's a small part
of a branding exercise. Most important is exploring who we are and what we
stand for. Internally it has brought about much more of an openness for
sharing and collaboration. This has encouraged the YMCAs in England to come
together under one name so that we are the YMCA.
Critically, it also made us look at ourselves from an external basis. The average
person out there who doesn't have direct contact with us probably only knows
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us through the Village People. So a unified image, unified message and single
voice will work for us all.
The key advantage, is us knowing who we are; our corporate identity as a
Movement. It is of equal importance that we know our own identity within the
movement, as it is for our many stakeholders outside.
And core values, that we all adhere to, is at the heart of all of this.
SLIDE CORE VALUES YMCA ENGLAND
Here is what England has only just adopted as its core values, which I find
helpful in their direction.
CLICK SLIDE
CLICK SLIDE
CLICK SLIDE
CLICK SLIDE
CLICK SLIDE
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We seek out - opportunities to transform young lives
We welcome - people into safe spaces
We inspire - each person we meet
We speak out - for young people
We serve - communities
If I had more time, I'd talk to you about the need to make your values
fundamental to each and every one of you individually. You personally need to
believe in them. And for some that may be difficult. For others, it is so deeply
engrained in how they work that this will be like a breath of fresh air.
SLIDE: FROM VALUES TO ACTION
If you want some personal homework, I'd recommend this book to read.
SLIDE: HAPPINESS IS . . .
Thank you everyone for giving me this opportunity to speak to you about
something that is very important to me.
The mere fact that you are discussing this whole area of work demonstrates
you are taking it seriously and are improving the quality and long term viability
of the YMCA in Australia.
SLIDE: THANK YOU
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1
The Value of Corporate Values; Lee,Fabish,McGaw; strategy+business
issue39, Spring 2005
2
Devin Brougham, Director, Vodafone.
3
U.S. National Park Service
4
From Values to Action; H.M.J. Kraemer Jr; Jossey-Bass; 2011
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