Insist on Playing Fair

 

Playing Fair or Fair Play is used in games and sport events as a rule of the game. Playing unfair will result in a penalty given by the referee and in the worse case men can be expelled from the game. In business the referee can be in the shape of an organization like the SEC, or our management, or simply our own judgment because we define ourselves what we think is right or wrong, or what is fair and unfair. We should be able to participate in games and do business without referees and respect one another. But in the real world we see that Fair Play is often being ignored.

 

Whether it is within the organization we are working or dealing with our customers and competitors, playing fair is of great value. By playing fair we will earn the respect of our employees, colleagues, customers and even the competition. The recent past has taught us that Fair Play is the only way to do business and to be successful on the long run. In the recent years we have learned about the corporate bookkeeping scandals and CEO’s stealing excessive amounts of money from the corporations they worked at. These are two separate cases but all players were playing an unfair game. In an interview Dr. Inamori said about these practices: “The more they pursued their self-interest, or egoism, the less humble they became, and even greater egotistical desires emerged”. I can only agree with these words.

 

These people betrayed their board of directors, shareholders, customers and employees. In the ENRON scandal employees lost their retirement money and the people responsible ruined their lives forever. But unfortunately playing unfair can be found in all the layers of an organization and in our society. In today’s society money, wealth and status are for many of big importance. The temptation of money and power drive some people to lose their values and play an unfair game. But the question is: Do they win on the long run? Members of management of Enron were once seen as heroes but are now seen as public outlaws and liars. Playing unfair is the result of lying, cheating, egoism, and disrespect for the other.

 

The Fair Play principle has to become part of the subconscious mind. It has to become part of our personality, our daily life and our jobs. So how do I adopt Fair Play in my job? I work as National Account Manager and I have the responsibility to sell Kyocera products and services to Fortune 1000 companies and large accounts. In sales we are many times tempted because we are measured by our sales performance. Good performance provides us with continuity of our job, gives us respect and a good income. Even though it is our strife, reality teaches us that we cannot win all the time. Losing an account or an opportunity hurts in four ways; our personal ego, our expectations, our forecasts in sales and our personal income. Within the Kyocera philosophy we learn that we have to be successful and never give up. Within Kyocera we aim high and set aggressive goals, for our company, our division and ourselves. But the philosophy does not teach us that we can be too creative and use unfair rules to win opportunities and reach our goals.

 

It all starts at the top of our company and it rolls down to our division, our team and our selves. Management should lead by example and adopt Fair Play in their guidelines and rules to do business, how to treat our colleagues, customers and competition. Within my division our management has set straight rules of engagement and to show to respect our dealers and other divisions. We have been put to the test but management is always following its own strict rules and regulations. At the end it always leads to victory. But victory does not go always without pain.

 

Personally I experience unfair practices played by our competition. Kyocera is for many of our prospects the great unknown in document imaging technology. This makes it easy for our competition to give our target accounts false and negative statements about the quality of our company, products and services. Confronted with these statements we are often tempted to defend ourselves by giving the same negative statements about our competition. I have learned that within Kyocera it is better to fight with the strength of our company, products and services then to fight with the weakness of our competition. Comparing ourselves with the competition is not wrong but making unfair statements or lies is the wrong method to become successful.

 

In my work as sales representative the customers are the audience and their own judgment will decide who the winner will be. In sales there is no referee that overlooks our game and our values. And if the customer makes the wrong judgment I will rather loose with great values then being a bad winner. Time will tell and if you never give up the customer will one day respect our values and Fair Play rules and will come to understand the importance of our philosophy, the Kyocera Philosophy.