By Dan May
Rotary Club of Orange
Dan May
A group of students from Amity Regional High School will compete on Saturday, Feb. 24 in the first round of Rotary’s Four-Way Speech Contest. This is a public speaking competition in which students get a chance to describe and promote a cause or viewpoint that is important to them as framed in the context of Rotary’s Four-Way Test.
Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor created the “test” in 1932 when he assumed charge of the Chicago-based Club Aluminum company, which was facing bankruptcy. From its founding in that city, Rotary included the promotion of high ethical standards in the business lives of members. But Taylor’s four simple questions guided that company’s directors and employees into a new culture for advertising, production, sales and service to both customers and suppliers. The practices and resultant culture change are credited with saving the company.
Taylor was a business executive and a laureate member of the American National Business Hall of Fame. He also was a civic and Rotary leader. Rotary International in 1943 adopted the four questions Taylor used to guide the corporate turnaround as its international standard for business ethics. Taylor awarded RI the copyright in 1954 when he served as its worldwide president.
Since then, this guide has been translated into more than 100 languages and shared in thousands of ways. In English, it boils down to 24 words: (1) Is it the truth? (2) Is it fair to all concerned? (3) Will it build goodwill and better friendships? (4) Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
The Four-Way Test and motto of “service above self” are two pillars of Rotary membership that help frame club decision-making and hopefully guide the professional activities of club members. The Four-Way test is relatively easily applied in many business transactions, but in the Four-Way Speech Contest, many high school students take the next demanding step of trying to see how it might be invoked in social, political, economic and even personal scenarios. This is much more challenging, as a win-win approach in business transactions can also devolve into winner-take-all in business or other human interactions.
Taylor was a devout Methodist and cofounder of the Christian Worker’s Foundation. He also served on the boards of a number of organizations serving youth, including Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and Youth for Christ. In addition to “The Four Way Test,” he authored “The Ten Marks of a Good Citizen” and “The Twelve Marks of a True Christian” as attempts to reach beyond business transactions solely. These other guides have not received the renown as the Four-Way Test – maybe because there are too many qualifying marks in each or because they are too challenging for most to meet. However, Taylor’s ethical values are intrinsic to the Four-Way test and members of all faith traditions have adopted the test itself globally.
If you want to see how the next generation approaches a broad range of ethical dilemmas in the context of the Four-Way Test questions, consider joining the Rotary Club of Orange from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the multi-purpose room at Case Memorial Library. Club members will judge the presentations by Amity High students as each student delivers a prepared speech from memory that is about seven minutes long. Their choice of topics is compelling and the presentations first-rate. Taylor would be proud, and you will leave the competition feeling uplifted as well.
Winners from this opening round move on to semi-final and final competitions at the district level, where they will be competing in April with students vetted by Rotary clubs from across coastal Connecticut. Similar competitions are occurring around the world at this time.
Rotary’s intent is transparent – to plant the seeds of structured, ethical decision-making in young adults as they decide on career and other choices. Taylor’s successful revitalization of that bankrupt company took about a decade, as it required a complete corporate culture change. About a decade from now, these young women and men will be well into accelerating professional and personal lives. Hopefully, they will retain some of Taylor’s 24 words of wisdom to both use and share with others.
Dan May is the president of the Rotary Club of Orange.