Success Blog

The role of leadership is to explore talent in an organization and bring it forward without caring for qualifications, global culture consultant Richard Barrett told D Ram Raj

“People begin to realize that higher values such as honesty or openness work. We need to live by the deep values that we hold within”

From transportation engineer to transformation trigger has been the metamorphosis in the life of 62-year old British Richard Barrett, now settled in North Carolina in the US after retiring from his assignment in the World Bank. Richard Barrett, a transportation engineer from Britain, is the managing partner of Richard Barrett Associates’ The values Centre and has authored books on corporate cultural transformation.
“Base your decisions on the value of your organization than what you believe. Value based decisions lead to success because you live within integrity. Choose a value before coming to a decision on a situation. If your decision has to be based on the value of trust, then create a climate of trust,” Barrett said in an exclusive interview on the lines of the India times strategy summit “value-Based leadership, Building a high performance organization” in Bangalore on Tuesday.
“I don’t know what drove me to this assignment, there was something within my soul which wanted to bring about a transformation in society based on values. I started this exercise in 1997 and have visited about 30 countries. I’m so fulfilled with this job that I don’t want to retire,” he said.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Yes, I believe there needs to be a balance that could be a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly routine. I believe in a daily balance and switch off around three or four in the afternoon. I go home and relax, may be around six or seven I check a few mails and that is all. I work on what I love most and minimize what I don’t love to. I write, speak and focus on thought leadership. My work apart, I love to be with nature, fishing in mountains. I’m very disciplined in my work-life balance, he said. I undertake my sojourns to nature once in two or three months when I’m at home. When away from home(north Carolina), I focus totally on my work.

DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHIES

When I map values, I pick the appropriate values for the culture of that country. Personal values may differ across geographies, but organizationally we can have some common threads. I cover the culture of a country though every organization is unique. The culture of an organization will depend on the culture of leadership.The beauty of this instrument “values-Based Leadership, Building a high Performance organization. We cannot have one-off remedies for all organizations.

MATERIALISM Vs VALUES

Young people may find materialism to be satisfying, but they soon realize that it is not a lasting pleasure. We have to go past the phase of ego and materialism. Values are there in every soul and it will get stirred once a person goes through certain phases of life. People begin to realize that higher values such as honesty or openness work. We need to live by the deep values that we hold within.

An organization that I know has about five values such as openness and commitment. At every meeting they decide on the value that they would choose for the situation and come to a decision based on that value. In case an individual differs with the value of an organization, organizations themselves might change values if they find that what they are doing is not successful.

- Originally published in Bangalore Mirror