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Growth in the maturing mainframe computer market faded in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, growth in the minimarket stopped. The environment facing Honeywell Information Systems was increasingly hostile. Honeywell is now making cultural transformations to revitalize the company.

As global competition drives organizations towards becoming leaner and more streamlined, many corporations have turned to Business Process Reengineering (BPR) as a means to radically change the way they conduct business. However, in many instances, dramatic improvements have just failed to materialize …

THERE IS NO LACK of pundits who are ready to tell the government how their plan will reduce the massive figure of people who cannot find work. Our own contributor, Angus Downie, elsewhere in this issue provides his own plan — to force job sharing and make up the sum then earned by each of the ‘partners’ by a contribution from oil revenues.

The authors show how organizations can best ensure that employees act in accordance with the corporation’s values. The key action is to develop a set of principles that amplify and fully define the values so leaders can communicate them more effectively. Principles that supply operational guidance help employees internalize the corporation’s values.

The article supports its conceptual approach with a case.

The case shows how principles helped one organization explicate the it’s values and turn them into a set of positively worded, unambiguous statements that guide employees in their daily work. When employees routinely apply the principles in their work, senior management can confidently delegate decision-making authority to the lowest appropriate level in the organization, having confidence that the outcomes of employee actions will be consistent with the organization’s vision, mission and strategic goals.

By describing the organization’s values in operational terms, the principles, taken together, provide each employee with a clear framework to use when making decisions.

The article shows senior leaders and boards that a key benefit of devolving power and using principles to guide employees’ actions is that it not only improves corporate performance in the short term, it also makes the firm more attractive to talented candidates for employment in the longer term.