While Johnson & Johnson is a company known more for our baby powder and shampoo than for a role in shaping financial markets, we are well-recognized for having built an enduring values-based culture over our more than 120-year history.  It was this topic that Dominic Caruso, our chief financial officer, addressed with the audience of business leaders, students and academics.

After telling the history of Our Credo, which Robert Wood Johnson wrote in the early 1940s, Caruso explained the importance of having a “purpose beyond profits” as a company’s foundation.  Caruso said:

“Over the course of our history, we have not been perfect, but we have been fortunate to have built a values-based culture where our employees know they are expected to do the right thing and to put the needs of our patients and customers first … In an industry like health care, where people often place their lives and well-being – or trust the care of their loved ones – to our products, there can be no question, no doubt, about this primary responsibility.”

Though Caruso stressed that Our Credo was a powerful “connective tissue” for our employees around the globe, he explained that it could not stand alone.  Tying into the regulation theme of the conference, he said we must also take a “trust, but verify” approach when it comes to how employees uphold our values-based culture as well as other business compliance issues – and that there needs to vigilance.  As he explained:

“We are not perfect and Our Credo – while a powerful tool – is not sufficient to ensure a corporate-wide culture of integrity.  We, too, must take additional measures to introduce and reinforce this culture with our employees … to hold ourselves accountable for our actions and decisions … and to adhere to regulations and policies that support this values-based culture.”

In concluding, Caruso challenged the audience to identify their higher purpose: “Ask yourself, what it is that your business – or you as an individual – are trying to achieve?  And how committed are you to staying true to that goal in both good and bad times? … In the end, the success of our businesses and financial markets must be anchored to a foundation of integrity, values and a purpose beyond profits.”

One Ethicon employee, Dharini Amin, led a team of volunteers in the effort during Ethicon Community Works Day. This community service day offered employees the opportunity to choose from approximately 40 local projects; more than 600 employees participated. Below is Dharini’s story about working with Habitat for Humanity.

From Dharini Amin, Manager Strategic Accounts, Ethicon Inc.

We all live our days working, taking care of family and repeating that cycle. Some do a great job of finding time in their lives to give back and I wished I was one of them. Being a working mom, I didn’t get as much time as I wanted to help others until I was offered the opportunity to lead a project for Ethicon Community Works Day. I chose a project that was in my own neighborhood.

I was very excited to be part of Habitat for Humanity since I’ve heard so much about the work they do to help families achieve the dream of their own home. I didn’t know what to expect: Would they really allow us to be part of building this home? Would I have a team that was ready to roll up their sleeves?

When I arrived at the site with a team of 15 volunteers, everyone was so eager to work. I was amazed by the diverse team of my colleagues from R&D, marketing, finance, IT, sales, and operations who were all ready to contribute their knowledge, dedication, enthusiasm, and the right spirit. The team worked so hard to make sure we did everything possible to get this house done. That night, everyone walked away pretty tired. 

Dharini (second from right) with a team of volunteers

Johnson & Johnson also hosts a blog (http://www.jnjbtw.com) that is largely self-congratulatory about what the company is doing (see “Giving Back Image of the Week”). But it recently had a couple of interesting tidbits, including a J&J expert on the value of corporate wellness programs and a series of tips on keeping kids safe from injury.

I’m glad the writer found the tips from Dr. Isaac and from Safe Kids to be of interest, but I was disappointed to hear that she found the blog – and in particular the Giving Back Image of the Week – to be “self-congratulatory.”

Through JNJBTW I had hoped to provide some of those folks in the corporation who are usually silent an opportunity to be heard and to engage with others online. I’ve encouraged people to use it to tell their stories, share their perspectives on different topics that are of importance to them and try to connect with others online. I don’t think the folks posting on the blog meant to give themselves a “pat on the back,” but were instead posting to share their experiences with others.

The same holds true for the Giving Back Image of the Week. When Shaun Mickus and I discussed his interest in posting the photos, I know he felt it was more about highlighting the efforts of the charitable organizations we happen to partner with than talking about our company’s support. I think our hope was that we would encourage others to learn more about the activities of these organizations.

Clearly there is room for more “interesting tidbits” and other useful information on corporate blogs like JNJBTW, but I also think there is space for people at companies to blog about what they are doing and who they are working with.

It is a pretty place, well off the road with clouds of blue-blossomed jacaranda trees and flowers tucked into every corner. The buildings are concrete and corrugated steel, frugal in design, but built to last. The luckiest dog in Kenya approaches, sniffs and with a wag of his tail pronounces me no threat.

The Nayumbani Children of God Home in Nairobi exists because a Jesuit priest from America felt he was called to ask what Kenya was going to do about its HIV positive orphans. Father Angelo D’Agostino did not like the answer, so he applied his considerable powers of persuasion to any number of politicians, doctors and just plain folks until he was given a tract of land and an enthusiastic Godspeed.

This was in the bad old days when the diagnosis of HIV stripped people of everything. The virus picked away at their resistance, changed parents from protectors and caregivers into reed thin mockeries of themselves. But stigma was the cruelest thief. It took their jobs, their friends, their very place in society.

How much more remarkable was Father D’Ag in that he did not see his orphanage as heaven’s waiting room. He discovered that children, if fed and protected and cuddled even just a little did not wither like flowers in a dried out vase. They survived. And so, he organized the place into families, with children living as brothers and sisters under the iron love of mothers and aunties. He started a school and set his sights on preparing the children for life not death.

I never met the man, but I suspect that if I had, I would have both blessed and cursed the day. Such are encounters with the dedicated. In my mind’s eye he looms like my own mother. She was a working class black woman who, like Father D’Ag, believed, in spite of what was obvious to every last person in America, that only the best education, the best effort, and the best aspirations were fitting for her children. And so, The Nyumbani kids had to have doctors, and lab support, and anti-retrovirals. What was their cost compared to the future of a child?

I ask a little girl in a long pink dress to help me find Sister Mary Owen. She is a tiny little thing with skin the color of strong Kenyan coffee and dark liquid eyes. She grasps my hand “I will take you.” Her hand is as lost and as comfortable in mine as a bird is in a tree.

“My name is Conrad”, I say. “What’s yours?”

“Celestine” she whispers like a dry Rift Valley breeze. She takes two steps for each of mine and I find my arm swinging with odd comfort to her rhythm. Where the pavement is broken or encroached by puddles she steers me cautiously over the best path.

“Where are the geese, Celestine?” I notice quite suddenly the absence of the pointlessly aggressive brown African geese that had laid claim to the grassy square near the new teenager’s homes. During my last visit it took foot stamping and a spirited counterattack to simply walk past them.

“The geese became very naughty and so we decided to eat them. They were very good.” She answers solemnly.

Celestine is nearly eighteen but physically she looks like a slightly built 12-year-old. Her life before Nyumbani has robbed her of her full physical potential. It was a time of neglect and poor nutrition and the stress of insecurity. She also can’t quite cope with girls her own age. When she was with the teenagers, she could not fit in. She became nervous, sickly, and lost weight she could not afford to lose. She returned to her old place among the smaller children and back with her housemother. I am told that she seems happier now, but the sadness on her little face looks as if it will take a lifetime to erase.

Perhaps it will not take a lifetime. Perhaps it will simply take a fresh opportunity to have the childhood that she was denied. Perhaps as her house brothers and sisters grow to her size and beyond she will find herself ready to move to the teenager’s house along with them. Perhaps she needs to fill in the blank spaces in her life at her own pace and in her own time.

So, if tomorrow is my last day on earth, I will write a letter to Celestine to tell her that the foreign man thinks of her often and wishes her well. That I want to see her have everything this world offers in portions sized for her stomach and timed for her appetite.

But if tomorrow is not my last day on earth, let me instead write a check to Nyumbani Children of God Home so that the nest in which this little bird resides will be there as long as she needs to rest her wings before learning to fly.

(Marc’s note: Conrad works in the Corporate Contributions group at Johnson & Johnson, and as such interacts with many of the charitable organizations that the company supports, often seeing first hand their accomplishments. From time to time, Conrad, and others in the Corporate Contributions group of Johnson & Johnson, will provide some thoughts from their travels throughout the world. on JNJBTW.)

Last week, the U.S. was thrown once again into emergency response mode, as wildfires raged in California. Like many individuals, organizations and companies, Johnson & Johnson tried to do its part to help.

While we all see the result of these efforts on TV or read about them in newspaper reports, it struck me that many people don’t know all that goes into organizing a response to these disasters.

I routinely work with the company’s corporate contributions team, and I’m always amazed by how complex these efforts can be. Unfortunately, we live in a world where disasters of all kinds are far more routine than any of us would like. But each time a disaster strikes, our contributions team springs into action to immediately assess the acute needs of victims and their families.

Since each disaster is unique, the response to any given situation varies. The one thing that’s always the same, though, is how quickly we try to respond. Around-the-clock phone calls and emails with relief organizations we partner with as well as other Johnson & Johnson employees during and immediately after any disaster strikes are a routine occurrence. These discussions help the team understand the extent of the disaster, the needs of the people affected, and the best way we can help to ensure that the right products and resources get to the victims quickly to save and improve as many lives as possible.

Johnson & Johnson has responded to major disasters all over the world for the past 100 years, and has developed a global network of disaster relief partners at the ready to deploy pre-placed disaster relief modules that include products, medicines and other relief supplies. With operations throughout the world, these disasters sometimes happen near to where Johnson & Johnson has operations which gives us a chance to get quick assessments on the disaster’s wrath so that we can respond accordingly. For instance, following a devastating earthquake in Pakistan a few years ago, the J&J colleagues in the area communicated the situation in the aftermath, that many victims suffered broken bones and other serious injuries. In response, we arranged to have thousands of surgical devices – pins, screws, sutures, and implants – shipped from the U.S. within hours to meet acute needs

In the case of the California wildfires, Johnson & Johnson worked with one of its partners, Direct Relief International, to distribute 15 pallets of Johnson & Johnson products to 50 community health centers and shelters in the area. The company also provided operational funding to DRI and America’s Second Harvest to assist with on-the-ground activities. At the same time, a message went out to employees, asking that if they wished to contribute to DRI or America’s Second Harvest, the company would match their donations two-for-one.

The team is now monitoring the situation in California to see if there is anything else to be done.

As I write this, the contributions team is at it once again. Tropical Storm Noel’s path of destruction in the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean locales this week means that the team is looking into what it may do to help.

Last week, while waiting on the platform, I bumped into a colleague from our legal department. We got to talking about cycling, and he told me about how he was going cycle 75 miles from Cherry Hill (which is near Philadelphia) to Ocean City on the Jersey Shore.

It quickly became apparent that this was no ordinary ride in the country. He was going to join more than 7,500 riders to raise money for the fight against multiple sclerosis. According to the MS Society, this annual event was wildly successful this year, breaking all previous records to raise more than $4.5 million.

There were loads of teams participating from different clubs, schools, churches and other organizations. Some of the larger teams raised a great deal of money. Accordiing to the MS website, friends and family teams like Team Tania and Jersey’s Team raised more than $100,000 each.

There were also corporate teams — including those from from Merck, Wyeth, and Campbell’s Soup. My friend from the legal department joined more than 400 riders from the corporation (most were from Johnson & Johnson operating companies) who made up TEAM J&J and who together have so-far raised more than $200,000 for the cause. The last I checked, TEAM J&J was the top team in terms of raising funds.

More about the City to Shore MS Bike Tour is in this segment from a local Philly CBS affiliate.

I contacted Michael Faia, this year’s overall team captain for Johnson & Johnson, to get my facts straight about the event. Michael works at Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, and rides about 20 to 30 miles each week, so this race to the shore must have been a piece of cake for him. Though he didn’t say, I’m sure the task of organizing a team of about 400 people from different companies and locations required a lot of hard work. So why do it?

According to Michael:

All of this reminded me of how by encouraging volunteerism and a sense of responsibility, large organizations and companies can be a powerful force — by acting as a catalyst for people to get involved in different causes.

As Margaret has pointed out in some of her posts on Kilmer House, Johnson & Johnson has a long tradition of supporting the local community and charitable organizations, much of it stemming from the sense of corporate responsibility instilled by the Johnson family.

Walking through the offices here today, I noticed signs for the yearly United Way Campaign, dates for upcoming blood drives as well as a sign-up sheet for a Walk to Cure Diabetes that will take place later this month. Like me, I suspect many people wouldn’t get involved in initiatives like these — or the Heart Gallery — if it wasn’t for friends and colleagues who encourage them to get involved.

In my case, after learning more about all this, I’ve decided to put my love of cycling to the test and participate next year. Now to start training…

I’ve always been a cynic when it comes to these kinds of surveys — which a friend of mine used to call “corporate beauty pageants.”

But this one has always been different — both in terms of its scope and its overall objective. It’s a very detailed survey that examines many facets of corporate life — from the availability of flexible work schedules to programs that help employees care for elderly parents. I used to have the dubious pleasure of filling in Working Mother’s survey application form — and believe me, at 30-40 pages long, it is very involved. Yet the survey is not only comprehensive, it also serves a purpose that is dear to most of us — it encourages companies to help employees better balance their work and personal lives.

For instance, the package of stories that accompanied this year’s survey results included an article about the following:

The article then went on to describe programs that encourage employees to unplug and recharge. This certainly struck home with me. Like many people, I have a love/hate relationship with my Blackberry — while it gives me greater freedom, I can never seem to shut down completely. It’s refreshing that these issues are taken seriously — and to find that I’m not alone.

As the pace of business and personal life continues to accelerate, it is increasingly difficult to figure out how to strike the right balance.

Employers can help by setting the right tone and providing different tools and support. It isn’t always easy to do, and there is always room for improvement, but it seems to be worth it. I understand Johnson & Johnson and its operating units are always looking for new approaches. As CEO Bill Weldon said in another feature in the magazine, “How do we create opportunities for our employees to excel and also find that balance they look for?”

One way is to listen to what employees are saying. That’s actually been the source of some of the work-life programs that are now available at Johnson & Johnson. For instance, a few years ago an employee who had recently given birth had the bright idea of setting up rooms that could be used by new moms to express milk in private. The idea took off, and today many sites have private rooms, comfy couches and other support for nursing moms.

Now if I can only think of a way of unplugging – short of throwing my Blackberry out of the window…

Well, last week I heard about a new program that may help address this. Through a series of lessons, high school students are given a crash course into what the pharmaceutical R&D process is really like — and see how their class work can translate into a career.

In the first lesson, students are told that there’s been an infectious disease outbreak in the school. They are then taken through the R&D process — from understanding the impact this mysterious disease has on people to learning how researchers identify drug targets and screen for molecules that could be a “magic bullet.”

My colleague Mark Krajnak attended one of the teacher training programs this summer, and found that the teachers got it:

As this initiative — which is called RxESearch — is rolled out at some select high schools this year, I’m sure we’ll hear if it lives up to expectations. There has already been a fair amount written in some local New Jersey papers, including the Star Ledger the Times of Trenton and in Pharmaceutical Executive that explain more about how BMS came up with the concept, how PhRMA is now managing it and how it is sponsored by a bunch of health care companies including Johnson & Johnson and so on and so forth.

One point that wasn’t made often enough, though, was how these kinds of programs and approaches can help close the so-called “science gap.” For years, there has been a great deal said about how US students lag behind those in other industrialized nations. According to a recent report by the National Science Foundation:

U.S. and internationally comparable achievement data result in a mixed report card for the United States. Although performance on assessments of mathematics and science achievement by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has improved since the 1970s, few students are attaining levels deemed Proficient or Advanced by a national panel of experts, and the performance of U.S. students continues to rank substantially below that of students in a number of other, mostly Asian, countries. This cross-national achievement gap appears to widen as students progress through school.

Fewer “proficient” or “advanced” students mean that fewer people will enter careers in science and technology — at least in the U.S. That’s not good news for science based companies like Johnson & Johnson, or for states like New Jersey, the so-called “medicine chest of the nation,” which employees more than 65,000 people in life sciences.

That’s where applied learning programs like this one come in. By understanding the importance of what they are learning and how it can be applied to the real world, kids stay interested, learn more — and may end up pursuing careers in science.

As Seema Kumar, who head’s Mark’s group, put it to me:

Programs like this will go a long way to igniting an interest in life sciences. The high school students of today are the research scientists, lab technicians and executives of the future.

One of my favorite high school teachers was Mr. Skalski who taught biology while cracking jokes and singing top-ten polka tunes (I did grow up in a Cleveland suburb, after all). We loved the guy for the laughs, but his madness had a mission. By making science fun and compelling, we ended up learning something – and many of my friends ended up working in the sciences.

While I understand that making science “fun” isn’t the central purpose of this program, my bet is that making it relevant will have the same impact.

This is a hard one. It raises an important issue about how a company should deliver such news. In fact, this question was debated a good deal internally, with strong arguments made on both sides.

In the end, we said only that expected reductions were to be about 3 to 4 percent of the global workforce and handled in accordance with local works councils and labor laws. A choice was made against providing a more detailed breakdown of the employee numbers or the expected impact at the segment, operating company or regional levels.

As Bill Weldon explained during the call and in his letter to employees the decisions were being made at each operating company – those organizations make the final decisions about how to manage their businesses and are best placed to determine which facilities or employees are going to be affected.

In some cases, the news of decisions reached followed swiftly. For instance, in Mountain View, Ca. employees at ALZA and Scios were told on Tuesday that the Mountain View site was going to be closed; some jobs would be eliminated and some relocated.

In some other cases, specific decisions may be revealed at a later date.

Regardless of what is decided, one thing is clear: the affected employees will be told before the media or investment community. It’s only fair. Out of respect for the employees, it’s important for the supervisors and business leaders to have discussions with the people who are affected by these actions before they are reported in the press.

Some reporters understood this approach. Others disagreed. The best approach to this type of issue will always be debated, but the underlying intention is sound and in keeping with how Johnson & Johnson has traditionally made such decisions.

One other thing about these decisions. – Johnson & Johnson is a big organization, with lots of opportunities. When it is said that every effort will be made to place affected employees, that generally means the company will include job fairs for internal and external opportunities, career centers, resume tips and other helpful hints.

The fact is that while management will work to reach these goals, they will also be working to minimize the number of employees affected by these actions through the use of attrition and hiring freezes in certain areas of the business.