How many of your parents have uttered the phrase, “bad company corrupts good character”? More telling, how many of us heard that phrase multiple times when we were kids? It’s a saying that comes straight from the Bible and it carries with it a great deal of truth. It’s a lesson every child needs to be aware of, and honestly many adults need to be reminded of as well.
Positive Input = Positive Output
What I have come to appreciate about that phrase, however, is what it implies. Ultimately what that phrase is telling us is that character can be influenced. Obviously when we utter that phrase to our kids we are warning them of the negative impact certain people can have on us. But if that is true, then the opposite must be true as well. Good people, good thoughts, good music, good books can all impact and grow our character in positive ways!
At PacMoore we care about people’s character. Our company vision is to grow people and feed the world. We often say contract food manufacturing is what we do but life transformation is what we are about. For that to happen we must be intentional in terms of providing tools and resources for our people to grow, including their character. A few weeks ago we talked about the importance of character and used the analogy of a fruit tree. A healthy tree produces healthy fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. In life it is our character that either produces good relationships and our ability to deal with the realities we face, or broken relationships and an inability to deal with those difficulties in a healthy way.
Character Core
Recognizing the importance of helping influence, to shape and build our employees’ character we have developed an intentional process through which we are trying to accomplish that. One of the foundational components of that structure is a weekly video shown to all employees every Monday morning. We call this video the “Round Up” and it is really designed to raise awareness of key character traits and values that we believe are important for all of our employees. The purpose is to create common language around those traits and values and provide examples of how they can be lived out within PacMoore or at home with their families. The second component of this intentional desire to build character comes much more organically. While there is value in hearing a video, the real transformation takes place when you work alongside someone who displays that trait or value in their everyday life. We work to identify, encourage, empower, train and release employees with strong character to go out and influence other employees. In essence it’s the exact opposite of bad company corrupting good character. In this case we believe, and see it lived out, that people of good character can help provide positive direction to those who need it.
At PacMoore our goal is to delight our customers with our contract manufacturing services such as blending, extrusion, and spray drying. Our goal is also to grow our people. Success in each of those requires intentionality. We are constantly seeking to improve our efficiencies and our level of service to our customers, but we are also being intentional about influencing the character of our people. Unlike the warning we all gave as parents or received as kids, we want people to say of PacMoore, “great company helping their employees build good character.”
