Character Building Is Key To Organisation Building!

According to several international surveys, Singapore is one of the easiest places in the world to start a business. Little bureaucratic red tape, solid infrastructure and relatively low taxation encourage the ambitious to venture forth and set their mark on the corporate landscape.

For these brave souls, they soon discover that setting up a company is easy indeed; too easy almost. Building and maintaining their new organization is where the trouble begins. Many fall short because they do not truly understand the fundamentals to sound organization building.

It is true that the most important tasks in ensuring that an organization has a sound internal coherence rest with its leaders. However, a common misconception is that the leaders’ main role is to set an example for their subordinates. While that may sound like it makes sense, a focus on mere example-setting actually detracts from the more critical point.

Examples are easy to put on. Any one can pretend to possess the proper values in front of others. It is almost like an actor performing for an audience. But when the cameras are off and no one is looking, the makeup comes off and all the wrinkles, blemishes and warts are exposed for the world to see. Moral character and integrity, on the other hand, are intrinsic; you can’t fake them. And that is what leaders must begin working on. This is the principle held by the exceptional CEOs of many successful MNCs such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

This is authentic leadership. From there, the leader can begin building the individual characters of the company’s members, who are the true building blocks of the organization.

But it is easy to understand why character-building is often overlooked or ignored altogether. It is either because the leaders themselves lack strong character, or that they find the process of building others’ characters too time- and resource-consuming. Instead, they substitute character for what’s known as coping skills.

And that, too often, is what capitalists desire. Coping skills are easy to teach. More often than not, they are primarily intellectual tools that negate the heart and spirit of a person. But they are efficient to impart and suitable for the modern mentality that companies and businesses – like instant noodles – can be built and programmed to prosper straight out of the packaging. While a company’s turnover is monitored quarterly, character-building takes years.

Coping or competency skills themselves are not a bad thing. But they are only one of two legs that an organization stands on. The other being moral character, of course. Without that, the company limps and hobbles about, without sure footing. Competency skills enable people to confidently react or perform in a specific situation. Character enables people to confidently perform in life. And where their workplaces become an extension of their life, as it rightly should, then that is where they will shine as well, provided they have character.

That is why JNP takes a hard line in building our internal culture. Even top-producing advisers have to be dismissed if they step out of line and find that the organization’s values no longer resonate with them. Otherwise, the environment becomes contaminated and everyone else suffers. We are not simply in the business of growing wealth; primarily, JNP is an organization about growing character!