On January 13, the Costa Concordia, a ship twice the size of the Titanic, ran aground. The rocks on the coast of the small island of
Isola del Giglio tore a 50-metre hole in the ship. In the end, 32 lives were lost and the ship's captain was charged with manslaughter.
What Happened The ship ran aground at 9:42 PM. The order to abandon ship, however, was not given until over an hour later. When it was finally given at 10:58 PM, Captain Francesco Schettino and his first officers were nowhere to be found. When questioned why he was not the last person to leave his ship, the captain explained that he "just happened to fall" into the same life boat that all of his senior officers were in and that was one of the first to head for shore. The more than 4,200 passengers and crew that were on board were kept in the dark and left to fend for themselves. With half the life boats unusable, the passengers and crew were in panic and confusion. Most of the passengers had never had a safety drill and consequently, had no idea what to do.
Captain Francesco Schettino was in a secret competition with another captain who had passed within five miles of the island of Gilio. Captain Schettino sent an email to this captain stating, "Next time I will do it better than you." Schettinto took the ship within a 1/2 mile of the island. Within minutes he was informed of the magnitude of the situation, the complete loss of power and the fact that the ship was taking in water. He never called the coast guard to report what happened, lied to the passengers informing them that it was just a minor technical glitch and ensured that he and his officers were the first to get to safety.
A Real Hero In contrast to Schettino, Gilio's Deputy Mayor, Mario Pellegrino, who was on shore, took the first life boat back to the ship, got on board and along with rank and file crew members, coordinated the rescue of the many frightened passengers. Pellegrino was one of the last people to leave the ship alive.
I was quite taken with this story because of its dramatic nature and also because my family and I had only just returned from our first cruise. I recall some of the veteran cruisers commenting on how brief our safety drill was. This brings me to the hidden power of values.
Core Values and our Businesses Values are absolutely critical to our businesses today. Core values say more about what we will not do than what we will do. As we round the corner on the end of the Industrial Age, we also come to the end of predictable environments. We now conduct business in an environment of unpredictability. We have no idea what will happen tomorrow. We find ourselves taking on employees, customers and partners in much more collaborative ways than in the past. These collaborative ventures are great when everything is going well. However, in an unpredictable world, crisis is always lurking around the corner and opportunities can spring up from surprising places.
We no longer have the luxury of telling people exactly what to do because we can no longer predict what situations we will find ourselves in. We need people who are comfortable with being empowered and who can make the right decisions at the right moment. In these situations, what people won't do is more important than what they will do. Our core values represent concrete boundaries on our behaviour. They create a sandbox that clearly defines where we can play creatively and where we will not go.
Schettino and Pellegrino faced the same situation and behaved completely differently. In hind sight, we can see Schettino's core values are self-aggrandizement and personal safety. Schettino would NOT put himself in a situation where he would be blamed for error (hence the lies about the severity of the situation to the passengers and the Coast Guard) and he would NOT put himself in danger (hence the rapid dash to personal safety). On the other hand, Pellegrino, who is on shore, takes the very first lifeboat heading back to the ship to get more passengers. He gets on board and directs the emergency rescue operation. He would NOT stand by and watch vulnerable passengers lose their lives. His values forced him to take heroic action.
One of our clients, Trinity Communication Services Ltd., is in a business where their employees are continually put in dangerous situations (high above telephone poles or deep below ground). One of their core values is safety. They will NOT compromise the safety of their people. As a result, they lead their industry in awards for safety. On the other hand, they have large customers who pressure them for lower pricing. While other vendors may compromise on safety to meet pricing demands, Trinity will not. They ensure safety is never compromised.
Corporate Culture Schettino is not solely to blame for the Costa Concordia tragedy. He was able to thrive within a corporate culture. If that culture had safety of passengers and crew as a core value, Schettino would not have been so successful. He would either adapt or he would have been reprimanded or fired for the many safety violations that preceded the fateful day of January 13. The whole cruise line industry is at fault. It has been allowed to build bigger and bigger vessels with no practical consideration for passenger safety beyond legal requirements. Its core value appears to be profit. In our post-industrial age, disregard for customers will always result in loss.
We are in an age of transparency and in this age, what happens on the inside will eventually be seen by everyone on the outside.
Action Items 1. Have you defined your core values? Are they really core? Would you fire someone for violating one of them?
2. Have you articulated them clearly? Do your people know them?
3. Do you scrutinize your key partners and suppliers for value alignment? Do you know what they would NOT do in a crisis?
4. Do you let your customers know who you are and what your core values are? Are you willing to commit to your customers and inform them of the principles you will never violate?