I hire you because you add value to my company. I continuously reengineer my company, and unless you keep adding value, I will get rid of you.

To clarify what I mean by values, let me classify them into a 3 by 2 table. Typical illustrations are below:

	Tangible	Intangible/Emotional
---------------	---------------------	-----------------------
To self	Salary	Self-esteem
To others	Good provider	Love your family
to family
To firm	Profit	Reputation

The cluster chart is further help to structure the concepts, ideas, and relationships involved (see Figure 1). We all know clearly what values are to the firm, and what tangible values are. Here I focus on intangible benefits to self and others. These are abilities we must further develop. We need to teach a balance sheet approach which assures that people are always aware of values and keep them in balance.

Our bookshelves abound in texts on human resource development, executive development, self development. Corporations are admonished that to build an enterprise they must focus on the individual, that their most important resource is the employee, and that they need to expend a lot of effort on employee development. We try to instill in our students the practice of life-long learning. But in the age of high competition, downsizing, and reengineering, this is not adequate, and we need to turn to additional approaches to develop the self-reliant, value-focused life-style.

Hal Lancester in The Wall Street Journal (1/16/96) quotes one Mr. Cassidy, who claims the reemergence of old guild situations in which people's loyalty went to, and support came from, guilds. These new guilds are formed by employees on their own, though I see no reason why firms could not support and encourage formation of such groups. Networking is the principal method by which these guilds operate, and here are some typical activities:

-- Establish casual relationships for personal and career support.

-- Develop permanent bonds, friendships, and camaraderie.

-- Reach out regularly or when needed.

-- Gossip, keep informed about jobs, opportunities, cutting edge practices.

-- Learn from people with more experience, knowledge, and gain perspective.

Professional groups such as DSI help to do many of these things in a somewhat more formal and less personal manner. But oddly enough, The Wall Street Journal does not mention the magic of E-mail, Internet, the World Wide Web, groupware, or Intranet to promote networking and immediate response. I believe that the new computer and communication technology will establish and promote the concepts of these guilds.

Conclusions

We need to assign projects to our students to teach them the value-focused attitude, groupware, and Intranet, and how they relate to the decision sciences. These could be gaming- simulation exercises, or even better, do-it-yourself, real-life, group projects.

I am proposing a workshop on this topic at the November annual meeting in Orlando. Do you have ideas? Let me know. I would like to publish more material, guest columns, and need participants for the workshop. Contact me at my E-mail address below.

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