Declaring what you value is a deceptively easy thing to do. However, what you’re actually doing is far more consequential than it seems.

You’re committing to an ongoing identity and course of action. You’re describing how you will relate to others—including those you haven’t met. You’re establishing a criterion by which you will be judged, not just by your contemporaries, but by history.

Many companies, governments and other institutions take this step with confident boldness. But not all do so with deep seriousness. And even fewer will survive long enough to have their values tested—and validated—through decades, or centuries, of change.

For IBMers, it is precisely because we have survived for nearly a century, and expect to thrive for another one—and because we face so many truly challenging questions right now—that our values are, once again, so essential.

How will we make the tough calls? For example, are there profit opportunities we ought not to pursue?

This is a question, in part, of attending to what’s ethical and in tune with our values. But it’s also about being honest about what we can actually achieve.

Conversely, what are the truly important public issues that we must pursue, even when it means extra cost and effort, even when it may mean sacrificing business? In an earlier era, IBM demonstrated this kind of principled behavior in matters of diversity and tolerance, when Tom Watson, Jr.—bringing the company values established by his father into a new era—wrote to the governors of some southern U.S. states about IBM’s refusal to adhere to “separate but equal” laws, and took the additional step of codifying IBM’s equal opportunity policy.

Setting out to base any institution on values comes down to two things: a clear idea of who you are, and the confidence that that is the right thing to be. It’s accepting a life based on continual re-evaluation and difficult but meaningful decisions. Which is, of course, the place where the important discoveries are made, and where the future is shaped.

In other words,A place inhabited by IBMers.

Dedication to every client’s success requires a clear knowledge about what success means to a client and how that is linked to IBM’s activities. For that, meaningful market insight needs to be gathered, and then a business design established that contains value propositions with a strong connection to client success. It requires an understanding of the interdependencies that exist between other

Business Units within IBM and with value net partners, along with any conflicting processes that need to be addressed. Using the success of a client as a metric to gauge our own success could have profound implications for the necessary formal organization and its related incentives and other metrics.

“When it comes to emergencies (e.g., the 9/11 terrorist attack or a major storm), words cannot describe the way I feel about how IBM rises to the challenge for customers and employees. This is the hallmark of a great company.”
—Mark A. Bartram

“The term ‘customer’ implies a product relationship, while ‘client’ represents
a professional relationship—including services, solutions & products. While a subtle distinction, I believe that this is an important one if values are to drive culture….We are all about partnering with our clients to deliver business value—as their trusted advisor and provider of choice.”
—Valerie A. Brown

“With our customers, I’ve seen us bend over backwards, staying up 24 hours a day, to get someone back up and running, even when it was not due to IBM problems. IBM has alerted customers to a problem with a product, even when not required, and I’ve seen us develop products to help the disabled and that we know will never make us a dime of revenue.”
—Richard J. Ruiz

Innovation that matters – for our company and for the world is a Value that requires both insight and foresight to determine which strategies will fulfill this promise. Growth is often driven by collaborative innovation, and this Value may become especially valuable when exploring an opportunity gap and its technological aspects. However, innovation can be reflected also in business models, management practices and processes. We need to create a climate of eagerness to pursue opportunities and change where every IBMer is an innovator.

“We have IBM Fellows today whose brilliant breakthrough was discouraged by their management at the time….But these persistent inventors just kept plugging, doing
a one-person or two-person or three-person, unapproved, skunk-works type of operation.”
—Bob Schloss

“So often, IBMers find themselves wondering, ‘Am I authorized to do this?’ What really knocks me out—and makes me want to stick around—is when I see folks strike out on their own at IBM, almost become entrepreneurs within the system. It’s so cool when it works!”
—Ethan McCarty

Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships is a Value that reflects the complexities of our business with its many-faceted relationships and the need to fulfill expectations on multiple fronts. IBMers at all levels need to demonstrate trustworthiness, and need to be supported so that they are better able to extend trust to others. This is vital for our business success – and it will only be possible if the right environment is enabled, from evidence to justify the strategy, to sound and aligned execution elements.

“Recently one of our on demand clients said to a group of industry analysts, ‘We’re not just trusting IBM with our IT experience, but with our total brand experience.’ To me, that’s a profound testament to the trust our clients do put in us.”
—Ginni Rometty

“Unfortunately, all large organizations need some kind of governance structure, but process is often built around the concept of control rather than enablement. But if we valued trust and trustworthiness and integrity above all else, we wouldn’t have to worry about ‘control,’ and then our processes would support customer excellence.”
—C. Diane Jetmund-Perigny

“Shortly after joining IBM 18 years ago, I was asked to serve on a jury. It was a child abuse case. The judge and the trial lawyers had many prospective jurors from which to choose. When I approached the bench and answered their questions, I was surprised when the judge said, ‘You guys can pick whoever else you want, but I want this IBMer on that jury.’ I have never felt so much pride. His statement said it all: integrity, excellence and quality.”
—Larry E. Jordan