Read & Lead

Core ideology is an organization’s self-identity that defines its enduring character.  It remains consistent through time and transcends product/market life cycles, technological break-throughs, management fads, and individual leaders. It is composed of core purposes and core values. AES definitely has its own core ideology. Roger Sant and Dennis Bakke, founders of AES, discovered its authentic core ideology, that could be passionately-held on a gut level for a long time, based on their moral conviction. AES’s core purpose is “supplying electricity to customers worldwide in a socially responsible way”. It can be considered as well-defined one because it clearly provides deeper reasons for the organization’s existence beyond just making money. AES’s strong sense of responsibility that explicitly described in its core purpose made it possible for AES to grow into one of visionary companies beyond typical profit-pursuing companies. AES’s core values are integrity, fairness, social responsibility, and fun. They can be regarded as a good model of core values because they succeed in defining the enduring character of the organization independent of the current environment, competitive requirements, or management fads. Also AES’s core values deserve to become the organization’s essential and enduring tenets and have functioned as intrinsic guiding principles for people inside the organization. That means all the elements of the company have worked together in concert within the context of the company’s core ideology, in terms of alignment.

One of those examples showing AES’s aligning itself with the core ideology can be seen in the company’s adding “shared value” as one of four measures used to assess the company’s performance and progress.

You’ve successfully defined the concepts, offered good examples, and explained why they are proper for examples of the concepts. As you put it AES has its own well defined set of values and purpose and good examples proving they are adhere to their core ideology.

[2] ‘핵심이념’(Core Ideology)의 두 가지 예를 들고, 그 것이 왜 핵심이념 원칙에 해당하는지 설명하십시오.

Yours is a perfect answer except that you offered 2 examples of different levels. Adopting a decentralized organization and running a tuition reimbursement program are not same in their levels. The former is in policy level and the latter is in program level. You would have mentioned AES’s education policy to make even the 2 examples level.

[3] ‘핵심을 보존하면서 동시에 발전을 촉진한다’(Preserve the Core and Stimulate Progress)는 원칙의 예를 들고, 그 것이 왜 ‘핵심을 보존하면서 동시에 발전을 촉진한다’는 원칙에 해당하는지 설명하십시오.

[3-1] ‘핵심을 보존하기’의 두 가지 예를 들고, 이것이 왜 ‘핵심을 보존하기’에 해당하는지 설명하십시오.

[3-2] ‘발전을 촉진하기’의 두 가지 예를 들고, 이것이 왜 ‘발전을 촉진하기’에 해당하는지 설명하십시오.

Preserving the core means making specific efforts to ensure that its core remains intact without confusing core ideology with culture, strategy, tactics, operations, policies, or other non-core practices. AES didn’t just philosophize about its core ideology. It translated its core ideology into tangible practices. A good one of those examples is that AES plant strives to be a “good neighbor” to people living nearby. All the plants of AES are equipped with the highest cleanliness and immaculateness and provide neighbor-friendly impression. That means AES did it best to preserve the core purpose and core values with strong social responsibility. Another example also can be seen in cultural elements. The Thames plant has so many social events that the plant people tend to find many time occupied by socializing with other members of the plant family and enjoy each other. Creating a delightful workplace environment with AES folks means one of AES’s core values, fun.

Stimulating progress means impelling change and forward movement in all that is not a part of the core through deep, inner, primal drive for progress that couldn’t be satisfied forever. And it should co-exist with preserving the core ideology within the organization like the yin and yang of Chinese dualistic philosophy.

One of the example that AES has been stimulating progress is it’s corporate culture and organizing principle, “honeycomb” that is characterized by no formal job descriptions. This means AES guides its employees to do new things and proceed from new job scopes and new approaches for them. This effort is one of the most important factors that can give AES the huge opportunity to keep up continuous drive for progress. Another example is the company tends to use a lot of task forces and informal communication to make decisions. This means AES values employees’ freedom to make their own decisions and gave to many opportunity to  

grow in terms of competency and contribute to the company growth.

This time you got it!

Instructor Feedback: Mr. Choi, you have proven that you understand every concept clearly and apply it properly. I hope you can keep this pace till finish line.

Assessment: Exemplary