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Learning Lessons from BB&T Just as a rational individual needs the ruling Objectivist values to survive alone on an island to accomplish his life-affirming goals, so he needs them in a free society to achieve such goals. Furthermore, organizations of free people in a free society also need to arrange themselves in accordance with these three supreme structural values to accomplish their common life-affirming goals. One organizational role model stands as an exemplary embodiment of these values: the Branch Banking and Trust Company (BB&T). The Chief Executive Officer of BB&T, John Allison IV, has ratified the Objectivist ethics into the company's explicit statement of core values. That they continue to grow and acquire other banks speaks well of their approach to management. Such a successful Objectivist organization with demonstrated bottom line growth warrants study for anyone wanting to create another successful Objectivist organization. Beneficiaries of Organizational Activities An individual acting alone on an island must necessarily benefit from his actions if he expects to live. Likewise, such an individual must continue to benefit from his actions in a social context for the same ultimate end -- his own life. Of course, the trader principle comes into play in such a social exchange of values. People produce and trade values through specialization and division of labor so that each participant benefits from the arrangement more greatly than if he had acted alone. Each one fulfills his natural purpose of living his own life and benefiting from his own actions. In a free market society, everyone from the shareholder down to the desk clerk fulfills his natural purpose in this manner. In a corporate setting such as BB&T that must answer to its shareholders, the organization must keep in mind the purpose of every action in which every member of that organization engages. At a time when many in the corporate world flap their jaws about "stakeholders," BB&T quite unapologetically states the unifying purpose of all of its actions: Our ultimate purpose is to create superior long-term economic rewards for our shareholders. It then presses forward with a set of clarifying statements applying the trader principle to show how benefits to the shareholders must involve commensurate benefits to clients, employees, and the communities in which they do business. Thus, a for-profit corporation holds the owners as the ultimate beneficiaries of all actions of the organization. By contrast, a not-for-profit educational organization such as Toastmasters® or a global Objectivist club network would answer to its own members. In that case, members rather than shareholders would stand as the ultimate beneficiaries of such an organization and so guide its ultimate purpose. Values Guiding the Organization Values amount to a set of principles by which to guide one's actions. Both individuals and organizations need these to succeed in the world in achieving their purposes. The values list at the BB&T site clearly comes straight from Objectivism. Purists will note that BB&T has taken Objectivist virtues such as independence and honesty and elevated them to the same level as values such as reason and self-esteem. Because BB&T aims at producing profits rather than teaching philosophy, this "flattening" approach to the ethical hierarchy proves fully understandable. Unique Addition to the Values of the Organization Objectivism teaches a code of values to guide an individual. What additional values might an organization need to succeed? A careful inspection of the company philosophy listed at their Web site will reveal a startling addition to the usual list of Objectivist values and virtues: 10. Teamwork/Mutual Supportiveness While independent thought and strong personal goals are critically important, our work is accomplished within teams. Each of us must consistently act to achieve the agreed-upon objectives of the team, with respect for our fellow employees, while acting in a mutually supportive manner. Interestingly, this formulation bears a striking resemblance to the explicit virtue of benevolence that David Kelley articulated as consisting of civility, sensitivity and generosity in his book Unrugged Individualism. While Allison remains a staunch supporter of ARI both morally and financially, he has publicly expressed concern regarding Objectivists who preoccupy themselves with attacking other Objectivists rather than simply living productively. BB&T and a Global Objectivist Club Network Clearly, BB&T has benefited from incorporating benevolent teamwork into its corporate philosophy. A global Objectivist club network would do well to emulate BB&T in this fashion. Anyone who calls Objectivism "a philosophy for two year olds" or claims it has "misanthropic" attitudes or only applies to a "solitary" lifestyle needs only to look at BB&T to witness a shining explosion of all such arguments. This article concludes with a draft of what a "Values and Virtues" statement of a global Objectivist club network may contain. It would need a number of revisions to preclude accusations of outright plagiarism of BB&T, Nathaniel Branden's Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, and David Kelley's Unrugged Individualism. But it gives a general idea of the principles by which members of such a network should conduct themselves.  VALUES AND VIRTUES Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. --Aristotle The great Greek philosophers saw values as guides to excellence in thinking and action. In this context, values are standards which we strive to achieve. Values are practical states of mind that enable us as individuals to live, be successful and achieve happiness. Our values enable us to achieve our mission and vision. To be useful, values must be consciously held and be consistent (non-contradictory). Many people have conflicting values which prevent them from acting with clarity and self-confidence. There are three cardinal VALUES and six corresponding cardinal Virtues in our Organization. Achievement of the VALUES requires aligning your behavior with the Virtues. These VALUES are consistent with one another and are integrated. To fully act in accordance with one of these Virtues, you must also act consistently with the other Virtues. Our focus on achieving VALUES through practice of the Virtues grows from our belief that ideas matter and that an individual’s character is of critical significance. VALUES and Virtues are important for members of our Organization! I. PURPOSE Our ultimate purpose is to create superior long-term life rewards for our Members. The free market defines this purpose as it should. Our Members provide the human capital that is necessary to make our Organization possible. They take the risk if the Organization is unsuccessful. They have the right to receive life rewards for the risk which they have undertaken. To create superior long-term life rewards for our Members demands that we provide excellent service to our Members, as our Members are our source of revenues and activism. To have excellent Member relations, we must have outstanding Leaders to serve our Members. To attract and retain outstanding Leaders, we must reward them intellectually and emotionally and create an environment where they can learn and grow. The benevolence of our Culture significantly impacts our self-growth results. The Culture's "quality of life" impacts its ability to attract new Members for growth. Therefore, we manage our Organization in a long-term context, as an integrated whole, with the ultimate objective of rewarding the Members for their investment, while realizing that the cause of this result is quality Member service. Motivated Leaders working as an integrated team deliver excellent service. Our capacity to contribute to the growth and well-being of the Culture in which we live impacts our results. 1. Productiveness We commit to being producers of intellectual wealth and well-being by taking the actions necessary to accomplish our mission. The tangible evidence of our productivity is that we have rationally allocated intellectual capital through our discussion process, and that we have provided needed services to our members in an efficient manner resulting in superior intellectual profitability. Profitability is a measure of the differences in the economic value of the products/services we produce and the cost of producing these products/services. In a long-term context and in a free market, the bigger the profit, the better. This is true not only from our members’ perspective (which would be enough justification), but also in terms of the impact of our work on society as a whole. Healthy profits represent productive work. In our Organization, we are looking for people who want to create, to produce, and who are thereby committed to turning their thoughts into actions that improve intellectual well-being. While independent thought and strong personal goals are critically important, we often accomplish our work within teams. Each of us must consistently act to achieve the agreed-upon objectives of the team, with respect for our fellow members, while acting in a mutually supportive manner. Our work at this Organization can at times be so complex that it requires an integrated effort among many people to accomplish important tasks. While we are looking for self-motivated and independent thinking individuals, these individuals must recognize that our Organization cannot accomplish some things without the help of their team members. One of the responsibilities of leadership in our organization is to ensure that each individual is rewarded based on their contribution to the success of the total team. We need outstanding individuals working together to create an outstanding team. To facilitate this teamwork requires the synergizing Virtue of Benevolence, which consists of three component Virtues: II. SELF-ESTEEM We expect our members to earn positive self-esteem from doing their work well. We expect and want our members to act in their rational, long-term self-interest. We want members who have strong personal goals and who expect to be able to accomplish their goals within the context of our mission. A necessary attribute for self-esteem is self-motivation. We have a strong work ethic. We believe that you receive from your work in proportion to how much you contribute. If you do not want to work hard, work somewhere else. While there are many trade-offs in the content of life, you need to be clear that our Organization is the best place, all things considered, for you to accomplish your long-term goals. When you know this, you can be more productive and happy. 2. Pride Pride is the psychological reward we earn from living by our values, i.e., from being just, honest, having integrity, being an independent thinker, being productive and rational. Aristotle believed that "earned" pride (not arrogance) was the highest of virtues, because it presupposed all the others. Striving for earned pride simply reinforces the importance of having high moral values. Each of us must perform our work in a manner as to be able to be justly proud of what we have accomplished. Our Organization must be the kind of organization with which each member can be proud to be associated. We help each member to master the six pillars of self-esteem to experience earned pride: III. REASON What is, is. If we want to be better, we must act within the context of reality (the facts). Businesses and individuals often make serious mistakes by making decisions based on what they "wish was so," or based on theories disconnected from reality. The foundation for quality decision making is a careful understanding of the facts. There is a fundamental difference between the laws of nature (reality), which are immutable, and the man made. The law of gravity is the law of gravity. The existence of the law of gravity does not mean man can not create an airplane. However, engineers must create an airplane within the context of the law of gravity. In our Organization, we believe in being "reality grounded." Mankind has a specific means of survival, which is his ability to think, i.e., his capacity to reason logically from the facts of reality as presented to his five senses. A lion has claws to hunt. A deer has swiftness to avoid the hunter. Man has his ability to think. There is only one "natural resource" — the human mind. Clear thinking is not automatic. It requires intellectual discipline and begins with sound premises based on observed facts. You must be able to draw general conclusions in a rational manner from specific examples (induction) and be able to apply general principles to the solution of specific problems (deduction). You must be able to think in an integrated way, thereby avoiding logical contradictions. We cannot all be geniuses, but each of us can develop the mental habits which ensure that when making decisions we carefully examine the facts and think logically without contradiction in deriving a conclusion. We must learn to think in terms of what is essential, i.e., about what is important. Our goal is to objectively make the best decision to accomplish our purpose. Rational thinking is a learned skill which requires mental focus and a fundamental commitment to consistently improving the clarity of our mental processes. In our Organization, we are looking for people who are committed to constantly improving their ability to reason through their commitment to the Virtue of Rationality, which consists of four component Virtues: 3. Independence Our Organization challenges all Members to use their individual minds to their optimum to make rational decisions. In this context, each of us is responsible for what we do and who we are. In addition, creativity is strongly encouraged and only possible with independent thought. We learn a great deal from each other. Teamwork is important in our Organization (as we discussed earlier). However, each of us thinks alone. Our minds are not physically connected. In this regard, each of us must be willing to make an independent judgment of the facts based on our capacity to think logically. Just because the "crowd" says it is so, does not make it so. In this context, each of us is responsible for our own actions. Each of us is responsible for our personal success or failure, i.e., it is not the Organization's fault if someone does not achieve his objectives. All human progress by definition arises from creativity, because creativity is the source of positive change. Creativity is only possible to an independent thinker. Creativity is not about just doing something different. It is about doing something better. To be better, we must judge the new method/process by its impact on the whole organization, and as to whether it contributes to the accomplishment of our mission. There is an infinite opportunity for each of us to do whatever we do better. A significant aspect of the self-fulfillment which work can provide comes from creative thought and action. 4. Integrity Because we have developed our principles logically, based on reality, we will always act consistently with our principles. Regardless of the short-term benefits, acting inconsistently with our principles is to our long-term detriment. We do not, therefore, believe in compromising our principles in any situation. Principles provide carefully thought-out concepts which will lead to our long-term success and happiness. Violating our principles will always lead to failure. Our Organization is an organization of the highest integrity. 5. Honesty Being honest is simply being consistent with reality. To be dishonest is to be in conflict with reality, which is therefore self-defeating. A primary reason that individuals fail is because they disconnect from reality, pretending that facts are other than they are. To be honest does not require that we know everything. Knowledge is always contextual and man is not omniscient. However, we must be responsible for saying what we mean and meaning what we say. 6. Justice Individuals should be evaluated and rewarded objectively (for better or worse) based on their contributions toward accomplishing our mission and adherence to our values. Those who contribute the most should receive the most. The single most significant way in which members evaluate their peers is in determining whether the peer is just. Members become extremely unhappy (and rightly so) when they perceive that a person who is not contributing is over-rewarded or a strong contributor is under-rewarded. If we do not reward those who contribute the most, they will leave and our organization will be less successful. Even more important, if there is no reward for superior performance, the average person will not be motivated to maximize his productivity. We must evaluate whether the food we eat is healthy, the clothes we wear attractive, the car we drive functional, etc., and we must also evaluate whether relationships with other people are good for us or not. In evaluating other people, it is critical that we judge based on essentials. In our Organization, we do not discriminate based on nonessentials such as race, sex, nationality, etc. We do discriminate based on competency, performance and character. We consciously reject egalitarianism and collectivism. We judge individuals based on their personal merits, not their membership in any group. The Role of Emotions Often people believe that making logical decisions means that we should be unemotional and that emotions are thereby unimportant. In fact, emotions are important. However, the real issue is how rational are our emotions. Emotions are mental habits which people often develop as children. Emotions give us automatic responses to people and events; these responses can either be very useful or destructive indicators. Emotions as such are not means of decision or of knowledge; the issue is: How did you form your emotions? The real question is: Are we happy when we should be happy and unhappy when we should be unhappy, or are we unhappy when we should be happy? Emotions are learned behaviors. The goal is to "train up" our emotions so that our emotions objectively reinforce the best decisions and behaviors toward our long-term success and happiness. Just because someone is unemotional does not mean that they are logical.
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