Consistency and commitment are the true reflections of integrity.

Pride sems to have become a hot topic recently. As I write this, the 2008 Olympics are about to commence in Beijing. For China, hosting the Olympics is a great source of national pride and for roughly 10 days, China, more specifically Beijing, will be a showcase for the world to see how this country of literally billions of people has rapidly matured into a sophisticated world power within a relatively short few decades. Much is being written about that pride and what it means to China as a nation. It seems that most efforts have been focused on creating buildings and presenting events that portray the county, the city and the culture in the brightest light possible.

Too bad that the message is not completely to point, and those all-so-embarrassing glitches keep showing up in the press.

Two weeks before the opening ceremonies were to begin, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page picture of Beijing showing the phenomenal levels of pollution. The same day, The New York Times had stories concerning American athletes debating if they should wear specially designed facemasks during the opening ceremonies. The facemasks are intended to help keep pollutants from harming the athletes’ lungs; however, Chinese officials had made it clear that they considered wearing such masks an insult to the national pride that the Olympics represented to China.

Equally, much has been written about the draconian steps China had taken to reduce the pollution prior to and during the games. Closing all manufacturing plants within 200 kilometers of Beijing weeks before the games were to begin was augmented by additional measures that included, in part, reducing/eliminating car usage in much of Beijing, closing certain industries including chemical factories as far away as Shanghai and preventing certain “hazardous” chemicals like sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide from being transported within the country. In short, China was shutting down much the country in an attempt to temporarily improve air quality and to make the country reflect the pride that they wanted to project to the world during the Olympics. Too bad Chinese authorities have not taken the same pride in all of their country’s infrastructure, environment and development activities.

During my life I cannot recall such Herculean efforts being taken to present a more scripted image for world consumption. Equally, I have spoken with many who privately snicker at those efforts, hoping that the world sees the real country behind the Oz-like veil. I don’t believe China has big problems, but I do believe that China is not taking pride in what really counts. China is a great example of how many view pride – talking the talk while working diligently to present the façade of pride vs. really walking the walk and showing pride in all they do.

How many times have we been in front of a customer, making a presentation and hearing how important quality and service are to them? They often wax with pride about their company; its sterling reputation or how the corporate vision revolves around words that, in effect, say that pride in product, relationships and integrity is what they are all about. And after such a preamble, they immediately start talking about price – and more to the point, how your price is too high to meet their profit objectives. Usually this salvo is followed by some disparaging comment concerning printed circuit boards seen only as a commodity, and anyone can design them, make them, as well as provide the quality and service they seek – all for less!

In China’s case, maybe if they had spent more time improving air quality, resolving congestion and traffic and working to make all the industries a little more ecofriendly they would have a real source of pride to show off to the world. For workaday designers and manufacturers of product, the Olympics offer a great lesson. We all want our world of customers, suppliers, employees and peers to recognize us and see the pride we have in our business, product and service. However, in order to truly reflect pride, we need to be consistently committed to taking pride in all the things we do – large and small. We need to understand that talking the talk is great, but there comes a time when the world we are trying to impress comes to look, and we had better have done more than just talking.

The only way we can truly take pride in what we do, what we stand for and how much we value our product and service is by making sure that we have taken the hard steps, walked the walk to ensure we reflect what we take pride in. Only then can we tell our customers what we do, how we do it and why we deserve their respect in the form of fair pricing. And, as China has been rudely reminded, a few new buildings or pieces of equipment won’t hide what the rest of the world can already see. PCD&F

Peter Bigelow is president and CEO of IMI (imipcb.com); This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .