Principle Two: Treat All Individuals with Dignity and Respect, by its rank order as the second principle, indicates the obvious importance placed on it. With the large number of articles included in other chapters, it may seem inconsistent that only six articles are included in this section. The explanation is simple: The manner in which we treat all people must be woven into the fabric of every one of the company’s internal and external activities. This principle is reflected almost countless times in comments made in articles throughout this collection. The chapters listed below contain most of the articles regarding this principle.
2.04 Providing Acceptable Returns to All Investors 4.02 Responding versus Reacting
2.05 Delight Each Customer 4.03 Human Capital
2.07 Embrace Change 4.04 Employee Recognition
2.08 Be a Responsible Corporate Citizen 4.05 You: The CEO
4.01 Growing Pains 4.06 Management
The remainder of this section includes six articles with their titles and abstracts listed below.
Introduction to Principle Two
Treating all individuals with dignity and respect goes well beyond adhering to the letter of the law and specific, enforced guidelines regarding workplace behavior. This principle must be consistently followed in all interactions while maintaining a healthy, open interactive environment. This will help to avoid the undue burden of the overwhelming sensitivity of every conceivable violation of political correctness that can result in guarded, superficial relationships.
All Individuals Means Everyone
Principle Two: Treating All Individuals with Dignity and Respect is not an internal company activity. Instead, it needs to be applied to everyone, all of the time. Through its consistent application, it will become part of your natural response and go a long way in defining who you are.
Trust: The Dignity and Respect Lynchpin
Treating individuals with dignity and respect involves both our words and our actions. Quite simply if we do not mean what we say or do what we say we will do, dignity and respect will not occur. Dignity and respect cannot be achieved without trust.
There Are Only Two Kinds of People
By thinking of the causes and impacts of people as they act as either critics or creators can significantly help a person or an organization maximize the contributions that each person can make. It is easy through conscious or inadvertent actions to move individuals from one category to the other.
What Is Success
Each of us develops our own view as to what constitutes success. It is easy to assume that others share our opinions. Quite often the common agreement assumption is not correct, and friction can occur. Those differences can quickly result in emotional reactions for the simple reason that people want to feel they are successful. Stepping back and considering the other person’s point of view can help to resolve those differences.
It Is Hard to Hate People that You Know
Our fast-paced business climate with reliance on email and other forms of non-interactive communications can easily lead people to make inaccurate assumptions about others. In most cases, when face-to-face communications occur personal bonds can be quickly established and false assumptions eliminated.
The Not So Subtle Threat
There appears to be an increasingly dark side to the notion of treating all individuals with dignity and respect. Instead of following this notion for the betterment of personal interaction, it is being applied selectively or applied, not because it is the right thing to do but out of fear of non-compliance.
