Value of Character

Many of my entrepreneur friends have one common grouse, “It is so difficult, almost impossible to find dependable staff.” They may use different words, like reliable, trustworthy and so on but the refrain is the same. They say we are prepared to have people who are less competent, provided they are trustworthy. Competent people do not stick around. They are far too ambitious. The result is they prefer to employ within the family and friends, than go for the so-called professionals. Professionalism seems to have dug its own grave.

I wonder. Have we undermined the value of dependability, reliability, and trustworthiness? So it seems. In developing professional qualities we seem to undermined personal integrity. Various scandals related to personal integrity and character in the corporate and political world seem to indicate it strongly. Even in selecting a friend or a life partner we look for material possessions rather than character. We have developed various tests (dubious though they are) to measure professional competence and performance. Do we have any reliable measure of trust? It clearly indicates what we value while selecting people. As a natural consequence, people spend a lot of time, effort and money to enhance their professional skills. Practically no attempt is made to develop character. Moral and ethical enquiry is anathema to professional. Such a person is derided and called names like “moral police”.

I think the time has come to reverse the trend and to bring back a balance between personal and professional qualities. I chuckle when I hear that universities like Harvard and Stanford are introducing courses on ethics while schools are removing them from their curriculum. It is another matter that this is like closing the barn doors after the horses have bolted or like digging a well after a drought has set in. Value education authentically takes place in children’s interaction with their grand parents through story telling. The foundations of character are built then. Alas with individualistic professionalism the joint family has become a relic of the past and grand parents have been banished to old peoples homes.

Does this issue have a place in the professional HR domain?

Ganoba