Principals to Live By

We all can learn from those who have succeeded before us…

What is Class?

• Class never runs scared. It is sure-footed and confident in the knowledge that you can meet life head-on and handle whatever comes along.
  
• Jacob had it. Esau didn’t. Symbolically, we can look to Jacob’s wrestling match with the angel. Those who have class have wrestled with their own personal “angle” and won a victory that marks them thereafter.
  
• Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes.
  
• Class is considerate of others. It knows that good manners are nothing more than a series of petty sacrifices.
  
• Class bespeaks an aristocracy that has nothing to do with ancestors or money. The most affluent blueblood can be totally without class while the descendant of a Welsh miner may ooze class from every pore.
  
• Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down.
  
• Class is already up and need not strive to look better by making others look worse.
  
• Class can “walk with kings and keep its virtue, and talk with crowds and keep the common touch.” Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class—because he is comfortable with himself.
  
• If you have class, you don’t need much of anything else. If you don’t have it, no matter what else you have—it doesn’t make much difference.

John Wooden, College Basketball Coach

Class is an intangible quality that commands, rather than demands, the respect of others.

This is because those who have it: are truly considerate of others, are courteous and polite without being subservient, are not disagreeable when they disagree, are good listeners, and are at peace with themselves because they do not knowingly do wrong.

In short, a person with class might well be defined as one who practices “The Golden Rule” in both his professional and personal life.

Character

Lou Holtz, College Football Coach
“The answers to three questions will determine your success or failure. 1) Can people trust me to do my best? 2) Am I committed to the task at hand? 3) Do I care about other people and show it? If the answers to these questions are yes, there is no way you can fail.

HONESTY

Harry Truman, Thirty-Third President
It isn’t polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It is right and wrong and leadership. Men with fortitude, honesty and a belief in the right make epochs in the history of the world.

LOYALTY

Woodrow Wilson, Twenty-Eighth President
Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.

Bum Phillips, NFL Coach
Loyalty, up and down the line. That’s one quality an organization must have to be successful.

ENTHUSIASM

Clint Eastwood, Actor & Mayor
I like people at their prime enthusiasm, when they’re riding a crest. Promote a guy and he’ll be dying to do good work for you.

Commitment to Excellence

John Wooden, College Basketball Coach
Success is a peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing that you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

HARD WORK – SACRIFICE

Vince Lombardi, NFL Coach & General Manager
The dictionary is the only place success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must all pay for success. I think we can accomplish almost anything if we are willing to pay the price. The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

Douglas MacArthur, US Military General
Preparedness is the key to success and victory.

ORGANIZATION

John Wooden, College Basketball Coach
Without organization and leadership toward a realistic goal, there is no chance of realizing more than a small percentage of your potential.

CONSISTENCY

Henry Doherty, American Industrialist
Plenty of men can do good work for a spurt and with immediate promotion in mind, but for promotion you want a man in whom good work has become a habit.

LEADERSHIP

Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
   Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
   Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
   Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
   Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
   Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds.
   Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
   Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
   Build anyway.
9. People really need help, but may attack you if you do help them.
   Help them anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
    Give the world the best you have anyway.

Joe Namath, NFL Quarterback & Sports Broadcaster
To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn’t know where’s he’s going.

Mahatma Ghandi, pacifist leader of India
I must leave. For there go my people and I am their leader.

Harry Truman, Thirty-Third President
Leadership is the ability to get men to do what they don’t want to do and like doing it.

Vince Lombardi, NFL Coach & General Manager
Contrary to the opinion of many people, leaders are not born. Leaders are made, and they are made by effort and hard work.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Thirty-Fourth President and US General
A platoon leader doesn’t get his platoon to go by getting up and shouting, “I am smarter, I am bigger, I am stronger, I am the leader.” He gets men to go along with him because they want to do it for him and they believe in him.

Earl Weaver, Major League Manager
Leadership can be defined in one word – honesty. You must be honest with the players and honest with yourself. Never be afraid to stick up for your players.


Tom Landry, NFL Defensive Back and Coach
Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence by seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.

TEAMWORK

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Thirty-Second President
People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual, acting alone, could ever hope to bring about.

Vince Lombardi, NFL Coach & General Manager
Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization.

PRIDE

John Madden, NFL Coach and Sports Broadcaster
There must be desire, intensity and a feeling of wanting to be the best on the part of a player. That comes from within him. You can’t manufacture pride.

Chuck Knox, NFL Coach
Pride is not like a coat; it’s not something that you lay down for two or three days and then decide when you get up some morning that you’ll have pride that day and put it on. It must be there every day and it takes constant work to achieve it, to keep it.

HUMILITY

Woodrow Wilson, Twenty-Eighth President
A fault that humbles a man is of more use to him than a good action that puffs him up.

Lao-Tzu, Chinese Philosopher
I have three precious things that I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

HANDLING ADVERSITY

Alexander Graham Bell, American Inventor/Scientist
When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.

John Wooden, College Basketball Coach
Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.


Accept Responsibility

John Madden, NFL Coach & Broadcaster
Once something is done, there are two things you have to do. One, you must evaluate what happened. Two, you must work towards it not happening again.

PERSERVERANCE

Jacob M. Braude, English Business Executive
Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you’re made of.

Ray Kroc, Major League Owner and Founder of McDonald’s
Personal Credo --

Press On

• Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
• Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
• Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
• Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
• Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent

Principals and Values

Leadership:

1. Lead by example


2. Manage by facts


3. Encourage risk


4. Take ownership and be accountable


5. Demonstrate high ethics/integrity

Quality:

1. The basis for all we do


2. Continuous improvement


3. Remove root causes of problems


4. Participate


5. Implement best practices

The Customer:

1. Our number one priority-a lifecycle experience


2. Understand their business


3. Listen—understand requirements


4. Build trust, confidence, and long-term relationships


5. Easy purchasing experience at an affordable price

Trust:

1. Work together/produce together/succeed together


2. Demonstrate dependability


3. Assume the best in your peers/co-workers


4. Be a trusted advisor to your internal/external customers

Business Results:

1. Achieve business objectives


2. Establish measurements-plot improvement


3. Be market driven


4. Plan effectively-implement the plan


5. Learn from yesterday and invent in tomorrow

Our Employees:

1. Hire and retain the best and brightest


2. Foster an atmosphere of success and “one team”


3. Develop people and provide career opportunities


4. Treat with dignity and respect


5. Share information


6. Offer appropriate reward/recognition


7. Provide a challenging experience