Principle 4. Have Personal Integrity:

* Be honest with yourself and everyone around you.

* Be fair to best of your ability.

* Say and do only those things of which you can be proud.

* Understand that mistakes will be made and learn from them.

* Let others know in as positive a way as possible when their performance or behavior is unacceptable, inappropriate, unhealthy, or unproductive.

Principle 5. Love All Children (and Child in All of Us):

* Respect and protect each child from harm of any kind.

* Direct all efforts to providing a stimulating, exciting, fun-filled, learning environment.

Principle 6. Value Parents and Family (Starting with Your Own):

* Focus on building close interpersonal relationships involving caring, respect, trust, kindness, and responsibility.

* Develop parenting skills, quality time, and bonding with other parents.

* Give recognition for hard work, effort, and accomplishments.

Principle 7. Strive for Agency Unification:

* Live agency's unifying principles as well as your own.

* Promote loyalty within agency by word and action.

* Assist in sharing of ideas and joint implementation through teamwork and group goal-setting.

* Establish buddy systems to facilitate success.

Well, managers, supervisors, parents, and teachers, what do you think? I'm sure that you'll agree with me that these principles are as appropriate in boardroom and workroom as they are in classroom.

Remember: When you maximize your potential, everyone wins. When you don't, we all lose.

* Company culture: If management's attitude is lax and absenteeism is accepted as a normal practice, organization's culture may have to be changed before attendance can be improved.

* Excessive rates of sick leave: As some insurance companies are now doing, employers need to monitor sick leave rates and reward employees who use fewer sick leaves.

Once you know cause of absenteeism in your organization, it will become easy for you to correct, or minimize, problem. But you have got to do your homework.

Remember: When you maximize your potential, everyone wins. When you don't, we all lose.