The PT approach to winning

I mentioned in yesterday's entry that last night our company, Principled Technologies (PT), held its annual holiday party, the Seasonal Celebration.  At that party, my business partner, Bill Catchings, and I gave a few remarks at different points throughout the evening.

A couple of sections of our talks focused on winning and how we believe PT--and any company, really--ought to win.  I thought you folks might find those bits interesting. 

Here's the first, from about midway through the talks.

Our principles are not for sale.

If you see a PT logo on a piece of work, you know you can trust that work. 

Don’t get us wrong:  we want all the business we can get.  We are very competitive.  We want to win. 

Gore Vidal once famously wrote, “It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.” 

We have a different take on winning. 

At PT, it is not enough merely to win; we must win while sticking to our principles. 

Every day, work--life--brings us chances to compromise those principles, tempts us to make PT a little less than it should be, to make each of us a little less than we should be. 

We must refuse to surrender to those temptations. 

We must continue to do all we can to be the company we aspire to be.

Near the end of the evening's presentations, we added this bit.

We believe PT is a special place.  We aim to keep it that way, and we look forward to all of you helping us do that. 

Nelson Mandela, who died just two days ago, once said, “There is no passion to be found playing small--in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”  We believe the same applies to this company.  Our passion for PT comes from our belief, our complete conviction, that by not settling, by always striving to be the company we are capable of being, we can all benefit, we can all enjoy passion for our work, and we can all win--with integrity--together.

I'm very proud to be at PT.  We don't just say things like this; we try to live by them.