Right Before Profit, People Before Bottom Line
Very excited, proud, and fortunate to be able to attend the third annual Hitachi Global Women's Summit. Second time in Singapore in less than a year, what a beautiful country to host a D&I tribute that perfectly harbors so many cultures and integrates global considerations in to their every day solutions.
The morning is starting off strong and I wanted to share a personal key take way that resonated with me from guest speaker Cynthia Carroll, Outside Director of Hitachi, Ltd.
Cynthia describes her journey to success in the mining industry in some part due to being aggressively brave (or bravely aggressive), staying true to her values, and some luck. In an industry where fatality is assumed, Cynthia chose to make hard decisions along the way upon confronting working conditions in mines and stopped production after a particular fatal incident to address safety concerns.
She further describes safety as the epitome of discipline, teamwork, and results - that safety should always come first. And here comes my strong belief: doing the right thing should come before profit margins, and people should come before the bottom line.
This isn't a novel idea, but I don't think it's discussed enough how companies can achieve both. They often are described together in a mutually exclusive manner.
Most recently working at Tesla which boasts a large manufacturing population, the words "We can't stop production" came up more often in daily conversation than I ever thought it would. Most often these sentiments would be spoken by someone closer to the line than I, sitting at Corporate, feeling management did not or would not hear their concerns. What I interpreted was that employees felt sometimes the right thing was put on the sideline so as not to hinder the continuous output of the business, that the business came first. (It is important to note this is not singular to Tesla, I am simply stating recent personal experiences).
Diversity to me is listening to all and closing the feedback loop. Leadership to me is not making decisions in a vacuum, choosing right decisions, and placing people first. What I love about Hitachi is that I truly believe they are committed to these values and taking proactive actions in their thoughtful Midterm Management Plan toward these practices.
Hitachi's social innovation mission is based on providing solutions to society which sometimes may mean offering an idea society does not yet realize they are capable of. With a 300,000 plus workforce in several industry sectors, Hitachi has the advantage of a utilizing a reputable global influence to be at the forefront of best practice and change.
So I challenge us to differentiate between "We can't stop production" from "In the past, we didn't stop production". I challenge us to think outside of the binary "It's either this at the sacrifice of that" and instead consider the below:
When presented with a tough decision, the answer may not always be the two options most obviously presented. Consider nothing as mutually exclusive or impossible until you have attempted the obscure.
Apply this outside of business, apply this to your personal life, apply it to your relationships, apply it when choosing what to spread on your toast. Change is not always easy, making a decision not of popular belief is even tougher. Leaders do not consider or perceive difficulty first (there will always be hurdles), rather they choose to focus on the benefit of pursuing what is best.
Impossible is just a word thrown around by [those who] live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. Muhammad Ali.