Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What's Right

by Mary C. Gentile

Overview

An innovative approach to standing up for your values in the workplace—inspired by a popular program from the Aspen Institute
 
“In business and in life, we often know what is the right thing to do, but we have trouble implementing it. This book, developed in conjunction with the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, shows how we can all give voice to values and make the right things happen. It is a wonderful guide to help us enter an era of responsibility and of leadership based on values.”—Walter Isaacson, CEO, Aspen Institute
 
“Inspiring and empowering. Instead of thinking ‘I wish I could,’ readers will come away saying ‘I know I can.’”—BizEd
 
How can you effectively stand up for your values when pressured by your boss, customers, or shareholders to do the opposite? Drawing on actual business experiences as well as on social science research, Babson College business educator and consultant Mary Gentile challenges the assumptions about business ethics at companies and business schools. She gives business leaders, managers, and students the tools not just to recognize what is right, but also to ensure that the right things happen. The book is inspired by a program Gentile launched at the Aspen Institute with Yale School of Management, and now housed at Babson College, with pilot programs in over one hundred schools and organizations, including INSEAD and MIT Sloan School of Management.
 
She explains why past attempts at preparing business leaders to act ethically too often failed, arguing that the issue isn’t distinguishing what is right or wrong, but knowing how to act on your values despite opposing pressure. Through research-based advice, practical exercises, and scripts for handling a wide range of ethical dilemmas, Gentile empowers business leaders with the skills to voice and act on their values, and align their professional path with their principles. Giving Voice to Values is an engaging, innovative, and useful guide that is essential reading for anyone in business.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300181562
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Mary C. Gentile, PhD, is creator/director of Giving Voice to Values, professor of practice at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, senior advisor at the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program, and consultant on management education and leadership development.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xix

Introduction xxiii

1 Giving Voice to Our Values: The Thought Experiment 1

2 Values: What They Are and What They Are Not 24

3 A Tale of Two Stories: The Power of Choice 47

4 It's Only Normal 72

5 What Am I Working For? 86

6 Playing to My Strengths: Self-Knowledge, Self-image, and Alignment 108

7 Finding My Voice 135

8 Reasons and Rationalizations 170

9 Putting It to Work 211

Appendix 223

A Starting Assumptions for Giving Voice to Values

B A Tale of Two Stories: An Exercise

C Enablers for Voicing Values: Some Examples

D Personal-Professional Profile

E Guidelines for Peer Coaching

F An Action Framework for Giving Voice to Values: The To-Do List

Notes 247

Bibliography 259

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

Gentile presents a strong—and sorely needed—case for improving corporate culture.”—Publishers Weekly

“Gentile offers a fresh approach to ethics education in business school: a practical primer on building skills and confidence to act consistently with personal values.”—T. R. Gillespie, Choice

“Neither didactic nor judgmental, Giving Voice to Values is inspiring and empowering. Instead of thinking ‘I wish I could,’ readers will come away saying ‘I know I can.’”—BizEd

“Timely and empowering. . . . A research-based, sensitive and flexible management pedagogy that confidently steers away from traditional prescriptive approaches to assertiveness training and conflict management techniques. . . . Gentile’s agenda lifts the expansive literature on group decision making, communication and persuasion to a practical, applied level for teachers of management science.”—L. G. E. Smith, Academy of Management Learning and Education

Winner of the 2011 Gold Medal for Axiom Business Book Awards in the Business Ethics category, given by Jenkins Group & IndependentPublisher.com

“The unique and critically important contribution of Giving Voice to Values is that it moves us past the debate about whether we can define a common set of values, to focus instead on a shared conversation about just how to enact the values that we already know, in our deepest selves, are absolutely essential. The book is both an inspiration and a blueprint, and lays out the kind of discussion I believe is required for business education and business practice—in India and around the world.”—Nandan Nilekani, author of Imagining India

“A wonderful guide to help us enter an era of responsibility and of leadership based on values.”—Walter Isaacson, CEO, Aspen Institute

“Mary Gentile’s Giving Voice to Values is a clarion call to the new generation of leaders to put their values in practice in the workplace. Its timely and thoughtful message is precisely what the corporate world needs now.”—Bill George, executive fellow, Harvard Business School, and former CEO, Medtronic

“Mary Gentile documents a fascinating tool to help us to be as ethical as we strive to be. She highlights that rehearsing for ethically challenging situations may allow us to develop a response more in line with our ethical preferences than the knee jerk responses that have led so many to make the wrong choice in important situations. The ideas in the book are clever, original, thoughtful and important.”—Max H. Bazerman, Straus Professor, Harvard Business School

“Giving Voice to Values heralds a revolution in ethics education. Gentile . . . wants to help you practice what to do when you know something is unethical. It’s like a self-defense class for your soul.”—Dan and Chip Heath, authors of Switch and Made to Stick

From the Publisher

"Timely and empowering. . . . A research-based, sensitive and flexible management pedagogy that confidently steers away from traditional prescriptive approaches to assertiveness training and conflict management techniques. . . . Gentile's agenda lifts the expansive literature on group decision making, communication and persuasion to a practical, applied level for teachers of management science."—L.G.E. Smith, Academy of Management Learning and Education

Academy of Management Learning and Education

"Neither didactic nor judgmental, Giving Voice to Values is inspiring and empowering. Instead of thinking 'I wish I could,' readers will come away saying 'I know I can.'"—BizEd

BizEd

"Corporate tragedies are usually the result of dozens of people who sit silently on the sidelines afraid or uncertain of what to do about a transgression. Giving Voice to Values by Mary C. Gentile aims to raise corporate behavior to a dramatically higher standard by ensuring that everyone not only can tell right from wrong, but knows what to do in the face of corporate misconduct and ensures that they will give voice to their values when it matters most."—Jeffrey Hollender, author of The Responsibility Revolution, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Seventh Generation, and author of the leading blog on corporate responsibility

Jeffrey Hollender

"Mary Gentile has responded to the cries of business and business school critics by shifting our attention from debating right vs wrong and right vs right to acting on the questions these dilemmas raise. This is the most significant contribution to business ethics I have experienced in my professional career! It is destined to shape the behavior of future generations in ways that should make us all much prouder of business as an entity and management as a career."—Leonard A. Schlesinger, President, Babson College

Leonard A. Schlesinger

"Mary Gentile’s Giving Voice to Values is a clarion call to the new generation of leaders to put their values in practice in the workplace. Its timely and thoughtful message is precisely what the corporate world needs now."—Bill George, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School and former CEO, Medtronic

Bill George

"The unique and critically important contribution of Giving Voice to Values is that it moves us past the debate about whether we can define a common set of values, to focus instead on a shared conversation about just how to enact the values that we already know, in our deepest selves, are absolutely essential. The book is both an inspiration and a blueprint, and lays out the kind of discussion I believe is required for business education and business practice—in India and around the world."—Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI); former Co-Chairman and CEO and Co-Founder, Infosys; author of Imagining India

Nandan Nilekani

"Gentile offers a fresh approach to ethics education in business school: a practical primer on building skills and confidence to act consistently with personal values."—T.R. Gillespie, Choice

Choice - T.R. Gillespie

Read Mary C. Gentile's post on ethical business practice on the Yale Press Log

http://blog.yupnet.org/2011/09/08/mary-c-gentile-on-ethical-leadership-asking-the-wrong-question

"Giving Voice to Values? Certainly a breakthrough in the teaching of business ethics, possibly a landmark in educating to responsibility and certainly a powerful (and attractive) learning vehicle at a time when leading business schools are, at last, rethinking their curriculum. We all know how challenging is the teaching of ethics, particularly in business schools (and in China possibly more than anywhere!). Mary C. Gentile's work proposes an original way to illustrate that beyond our teaching of the value of values we need to find ways to engage into the critical step to make them explicit. Then, we, organizations and the world might be on the path to become better."—Henri-Claude de Bettignies, Distinguished Professor of Globally Responsible Leadership, China-Europe International Business School (CEIBS); The Aviva Chair Emeritus Professor of Leadership & Responsibility, INSEAD

Henri-Claude de Bettignies

"Ethical dilemmas in business often are met with silence – not because the right answers were unknown, but because the right conversation wasn’t initiated. Giving Voice to Values is a tool to give us all the push we need to stay true to our values and moral compass in the face of the day-to-day challenges of life and business."—David Langstaff, Chairman, Board of Directors, TASC, Inc.; Founder and Former CEO, Veridian Corporation

David Langstaff

"China as a nation, Chinese corporations and individual Chinese leaders are all facing a mid-life crisis. They are soul searching to decide which way to go for the next stage. They are adults and adults learn best from their own experience and the experiences of their peers. Nobody can dictate or preach to a successful entrepreneur; their best teacher is their heart, full of wisdom from street-fight experience. All they need is to crystallize their internal values through a process of external expression. Giving Voice to Values is doing just that and that is exactly what China needs. Launching GVV in China will be a striking success and it will be critical to China’s continued success."—Dr. Morley C. Su, President of Millennium Capital Services, a leading Climate Change solutions provider in China, Ph. D in Business Ethics Education

Dr. Morley C. Su

"I can think of no better way to take ‘ethics’ out of the realm of pure philosophical discussion. Giving Voice to Values identifies what’s stopping us from acting on the values we feel strongly about. It gives us the tools, the courage and the understanding to be our better self in even the stickiest business situation."—Ira Millstein, Senior Partner, Weil Gotshal, Manges, Senior Associate Dean for Corporate Governance and the Eugene F. Williams, Jr. Visiting Professor for Competitive Enterprise and Strategy, Yale School of Management

Ira Millstein

Winner of the 2011 Gold Medal for Axiom Business Book Awards in the Business Ethics category, as given by Jenkins Group & IndependentPublisher.com

Jenkins Group & IndependentPublisher.com - Axiom Business Book Award

"Mary Gentile documents a fascinating tool to help us to be as ethical as we strive to be. She highlights that rehearsing for ethically challenging situations may allow us to develop a response more in line with our ethical preferences than the knee jerk responses that have led so many to make the wrong choice in important situations. The ideas in the book are clever, original, thoughtful and important."—Max H. Bazerman, Straus Professor – HBS

Max H. Bazerman

". . . the most significant contribution to business ethics I have experienced in my professional career! . . . destined to shape the behavior of future generations in ways that should make us all much prouder of business as an entity and management as a career."—Leonard A. Schlesinger, President, Babson College

Leonard Schlesinger

"Giving Voice To Values heralds a revolution in ethics education. Gentile isn't interested in abstract (and often fruitless) debates about ethical principles—rather, she wants to help you practice what to do when you know something is unethical. It's like a self-defense class for your soul."—Dan and Chip Heath, authors of Switch and Made to Stick

Dan and Chip Heath

"In business and in life, we often know what is the right thing to do, but we have trouble implementing it. This book, developed in conjunction with the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program, shows how we can all give voice to values and make the right things happen. It is a wonderful guide to help us enter an era of responsibility and of leadership based on values."—Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute

Walter Isaacson

“Gentile offers a fresh approach to ethics education in business school: a practical primer on building skills and confidence to act consistently with personal values.”—T.R. Gillespie, Choice

— T.R. Gillespie

Choice

Winner of the 2011 Gold Medal for Axiom Business Book Awards in the Business Ethics category, as given by Jenkins Group & IndependentPublisher.com

— Axiom Business Book Award

Jenkins Group & IndependentPublisher.com

Read Mary C. Gentile's post on ethical business practice on the Yale Press Log

http://yalepress.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/mary-c-gentile-on-ethical-leadership-a

Visit the book's website

http://www.givingvoicetovaluesthebook.com/

Visit Mary Gentile’s website for the book: http://www.GivingVoiceToValuesTheBook.com

http://www.GivingVoiceToValuesTheBook.com

Read Mary C. Gentile's post on ethical business practice on the Yale Press Log

http://blog.yupnet.org/2011/09/08/mary-c-gentile-on-ethical-leadership-asking-the-wrong-question