What Really Matters Service, Leadership, People, and Values John Pepper

The fundamental question in business and in personal life is the same: What really matters? In this book one of America' s most widely admired business leaders distills a lifetime of experience, including failures as well as successes, to reveal his answers.
John Pepper, president, CEO, and chairman of Procter & Gamble for a combined 16 years, underscores the importance of continuous change, innovation, and renewal as prerequisites for growth and sound leadership. In "What Really Matters" he suggests that a preparedness to alter perspective, rethink assumptions, or change course is central not only to understanding customer needs and keeping costs under control but also to developing talent, organizing global businesses, and supporting communities. While he discusses specific business tactics, he notes that they all center on fundamental tenets: listen to and respect the customer, engender personal accountability and passionate ownership, encourage diversity, and create a vibrant, trusting institution that incorporates employees and their families. In his own years as an executive, Pepper has demonstrated that a profitable business can create and sustain a culture that shapes-- and is shaped by-- ethical behavior. His profoundly important advice and counsel belong in the lexicon and practice of every leader.

""What Really Matters" is a deeply personal, almost spiritual, set of reflections focused on the human side of enterprise. John Pepper presents a collection of principled values and short stories that focus on individual contributors and team-based behaviors that at the core reflect humility and pride, stewardship and service, loyalty and devotion, all shaped and guided by a shared sense of purpose that binds together a very special global community of winners who are privileged to call themselves P& Gers."-Pete Nicholas, CEO, Boston Scientific Corporation