Page 191 - The Bible On Leadership

Justice and Fairness 177

Some companies, by contrast, actually set up a system to counteract
abuses of justice, even by those at high levels. In doing so, they are
following the lead of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, who set up a system
of courts and advised the newly appointed judges, ‘‘Consider carefully
what you do . . . Judge carefully, for with the Lord our God there is no
injustice or impartiality.’’ (2 Chron. 19:4–11)
One company that has set up such a system protecting the rights of
all is FedEx, and that system is called the Guaranteed Fair Treatment
(GFT) process. The process guarantees all employees a trial by their
peers (something rather uncommon in most corporations, and one that
might have been a good vehicle for the drunken instructor situation
described earlier). The appeals process goes all the way to the CEO,
where three of five people on the panel can be picked by the employee.
One FedEx manager says that the GFT process is not only a vehicle
for justice and fairness but also for better overall management: ‘‘The
GFT process . . . is a good vehicle for the employee as well as the
manager, because if the employee never GFT’s the manager, how
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would you know how you are managing?’’ In one case, an employee
was fired on a technicality and won her case, only to be harassed by her
manager. She filed another GFT; in many cases, the employee would
have been asked to accept a transfer, but at FedEx, she was allowed to
keep her job and the manager was relieved of supervisory responsibility.
Gary Heavin of Curves for Women believes fervently in the long-
term power of justice and fairness, and is willing to make short-term
economic sacrifices in the interest of fairness. Heavin notes that in most
franchising arrangements, the franchisor gets a fixed percentage of the
franchisee’s revenues. ‘‘I thought, ‘The people doing really well—why
should they pay more?’ They’d just get angry and resent us. So I chose
a flat fee for all franchisees, according to the law of integrity. I wanted
to do the fair thing.’’ 2
Ironically, Heavin has found that justice and fairness actually ‘‘pay’’
in the long run. ‘‘These people who did really well shouted it from
the rooftops; they don’t hide any revenues from me, and they recruit
franchisees—it was the machine that drove us.’’ Heavin, true to his
biblical principles, runs his company like David ran his kingdom: