The 3 Power Values by David Gebler - Book review

The 3 Power Values

How Commitment, Integrity, and Transparency Clear the Roadblocks to Performance

By David Gebler

Published: May 1, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1118101324
ISBN-13: 978-1118101322
Publisher: Jossey-Bass












"The road to high performance begins with understanding how your company's culture affects your people's behavior and performance", writes speaker, attorney,and thought leader on ethics and corporate culture, David Gebler, in his insightful and ethical culture creating book The 3 Power Values: How Commitment, Integrity, and Transparency Clear the Roadblocks to Performance. The author describes how to remove the corporate cultural roadblocks, that prevent employees from living the right values within their organizations, and for serving their customers.

David Gebler understands the importance of company culture to the overall performance of the organization. The author also understands that employees already possess the values and ethics, but those values and ethics are all too often obstructed by decisions and practices of the organization. David Gebler proposes removing those impediments to acting on the right values. He demonstrates that strong ethical behavior is also good for business profitability. The author provides the three cultural pillars that remove those systemic barriers that deter values based actions. David Gebler shows leaders how to encourage and reward ethical behavior that transforms the overall organizational culture to an ethics based one.

David Gebler (photo left) recognizes how a toxic corporate culture has a negative impact on the decisions made within the organization. The deep chasm that exists between the stated company values, and those practiced in the daily routine is all too often out of alignment. The author shares the principles for realigning company values with the innate ethical values of the employees.

The author points out the destructive cultural practices that lead to toxicity within the culture through the derailment of ethics and values. Those three roadblocks to ethics and values based behavior are:

* Self-deception where the employee overlooks the risks and questionable action
* Rationalization where an unethical decision may achieve a short term goal
* Disengagement where problems linger due to apathy
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David Gebler bases the cultural transformation, to countering the hijacking behaviors, through the internalizing and practicing of three power values. Those three values are:

* Commitment that connects values with goals to engage employees
* Integrity to build trust that the values behavior will continue
* Transparency where an open culture encourages expression of values

For me, the power of the book is how David Gebler combines a comprehensive analysis of the root causes of a toxic company culture with the three power values that transform the organization to one based on values. The author shines a strong light on the misalignment within organizations, where the policy may be one of values and ethics, but the real behavior may be unethical and even illegal in nature. David Gebler correctly points out that employees want to act in an ethical manner. The problem for them is the barriers placed in the path of taking the proper values based actions.

Organizational goals may require stepping outside of the ethical bounds to achieve the results demanded by the strategy. The systemic practice of bad ethical behavior may lead to short term gain, but as the author demonstrates, that profit is not sustainable. Instead, David Gebler makes a strong bottom line business case for ethical decisions and actions. Good ethics are shown to also be good business.

I highly recommend the essential and values based company culture building book The 3 Power Values: How Commitment, Integrity, and Transparency Clear the Roadblocks to Performance by David Gebler, to any organizational leaders, executives, and managers seeking a clear and concise blueprint for creating an ethical company culture. This book will realign values with actions, reengage employees to reignite their passion, establish an ethics based organizational culture, and boost the overall company bottom line