THE 4-WAY TEST
June 11, 2013 – Our speaker was fellow Rotarian George Stevens, who is President/CEO of Coastal Community Foundation(CCF). CCF serves eight coastal counties in South Carolina in an effort to make the communities of the Lowcountry better places to live. As a public grantmaking foundation, it has distributed over $100M in grants to hundreds of nonprofits since 1974. CCF started with a $9k grant from our own Historic Rotary Club of Charleston in 1974. It now has a $162M endowment.
George’s topic for the day was Rotary’s 4 Way Test. It was created back in the 1930’s by Herbert Taylor who owned the Club Aluminum Products Company. His company was not doing well and he was trying to save it from bankruptcy. He believed himself to be the only person in the company with 250 employees who had hope. His recovery plan started with changing the ethical climate of the company. Mr. Taylor explained, “The first job was to set policies for the company that would reflect the high ethics and morals God would want in any business. If the people who worked for Club Aluminum were to think right, I knew they would do right. What we needed was a simple, easily remembered guide to right conduct – a sort of ethical yardstick- which all of us in the company could memorize and apply to what we thought, said and did.” After searching through many books for the right phrases, he bowed his head down and prayed. Moments later, he picked up an index card and wrote down the exact 24 words we know now to be our Rotary 4-Way Test. Mr. Taylor allowed Rotary to use his 4-Way Test when he was an international director of Rotary in the 1940’s and gave the copyright to Rotary in 1954.
Our speaker, George Stevens, spent a few minutes talking about each part of the 4-Way Test and how all of them circle back to the goodwill portion mentioned in the third part of the test.
First, is it the truth? Truth, as in predictable, steady, and honest. True, as in a true friend. George asked us why we need to be reminded to ask this question. The answer lies in the fact that we don’t always tell the exact truth. We are flawed and sometimes prone to exaggeration. We ultimately destroy any goodwill that has been built up when we don’t tell the truth.
Second, is it fair to all concerned? Fair doesn’t always mean equal. To answer this question requires a consideration of context. We have to look beyond ourselves and our partners to the greater community beyond us. Showing a sense of fairness in your life will build great goodwill.
Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? George spent most of his time discussing the idea of goodwill and how it relates to the other three parts of the test. For example, the fourth part of the test asks will it be beneficial to all concerned? George made a case that building goodwill is an important part of accomplishing the most benefit. He juxtaposed the disaster and ill will brought on by the BP oil rig leak in April 2010 to the tremendous amount of goodwill built and benefit achieved by a Beaufort fund raising foundation. From initial leak in April 2010, BP was not truthful about the amount of oil actually leaking. They started out by saying that there about one thousand barrels per day leaking. Within 5 weeks, the government established that it had actually been about 19 thousand barrels a day. During that time, BP market value went down from $189B to $87B. Not telling the truth led to a lot of ill will and eventually led them to a great monetary loss. A large part of the $37.2B that BP budgeted for spill related expenses was for ‘Goodwill Remediation.’ They gave $100M to North American Wetland Conservation, $150M to National Wild Turkey Federation, and $100k to the Lowcountry Land Trust here in South Carolina, just to name a few. In stark contrast to this, the Beaufort Fund Grantees here in South Carolina managed to build up enough good will that they were actually able to increase the amount of donations made to the fund during the recession.
Reported by Doug Holmes, Keyway Committee