Why should you care about company values?

I’ve been talking about values a great deal over the last few months. They form part of the work we do with many organisations, and I’ll admit they’ve become somewhat of an obsession for me. Specifically, how they align with business strategy, and how they’ll help you realise your vision. How, if authored with authenticity, they will help every member of staff make the decisions they need to make without always checking if they are right or wrong.

Recently, in a meeting, I heard someone say…

“Does everyone realise that values shouldn’t just be a poster on the wall?”

I sat there nodding, thinking that I’d been guilty of saying that before. But this time I fixated on a single word in the sentence. That your values shouldn’t JUST be a poster on your wall.

Actually, what’s wrong with having your values writ large on your walls? Why wouldn’t you want there to be a daily reminder of what your company stands for, and how it operates culturally?

A colleague of mine often refers to the number of times you have to repeat information in order for people to retain it. He cites business strategy as one of these things, and we begin every vision day with a recap of our strategy to reinforce its importance.

Most of us aren’t accustomed to memorising large amounts of information. So a daily reminder of how we should be behaving is probably useful for many. Maybe even most.

Values are a fundamental part of your strategy

Values are important. They sit at the core of culture. Serving as the foundation of your business’ identity, they guide behaviours, rituals and decision-making, helping to both provide and support a clear sense of purpose across an organisation. 

In fact, I can think that there aren’t many reasons why you wouldn’t want your values painted on the walls.

Actually, come to think of it… I can.

Your values aren’t what you need them to be. They’re not working, they’re outdated, they’re inauthentic. They don’t give your people the guardrails they need within which to make decisions. They aren’t actually representative of the group of people you call colleagues.

And that’s a problem.

If they’re not working, or outdated, or inauthentic, your business will be suffering.

If your values aren’t working, but they’re plastered all over your office, then the gap between what you say and what you do is likely getting larger by the day. And when people start working for you, the values they’ve been introduced to won’t be worth the wall space they’re taking up.

Rather than being a simple set of words that adorn the walls, values create an exchange between business and customer, which creates a positive customer experience and, in turn, improves the employee experience.

Getting your values right

In an article for the HBR, Patrick Lencioni, author of the popular book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, asks the reader to consider the following values:

Communication
Respect
Integrity
Excellence.

Do they sound like yours?

On the face of it, he writes, these values sound good: strong, concise and meaningful.

Unfortunately, these are the values described in Enron’s 2000 annual report. Remember Enron? Under pressure from shareholders, they began to rely on dubious accounting practices which, ultimately, led to their bankruptcy that year and the dissolution of their accountancy partners Athur Andersen LLP.

So their values, Lecioni argues, are not meaningful, but completely meaningless.

Traditionally, values have been created in isolation from the wider business. Authored by leadership (sometimes through consultants like us), eager to promote what they see as good behaviours. But your organisation’s values already exist. And, rather than trying to construct values which are never going to be adopted by the widest employee group, you can follow a tried-and-tested process. A method for finding values, based on identifying the behavioural traits of the people in your business who genuinely uphold the organisation’s culture – ensuring that the culture is defined from a set of best, authentic behaviours, not by simply picking words that sound good.

And, once you’ve identified the behaviours you can start to construct titles and, most importantly, the distinctive descriptions, questions and measurements you’ll need. After all, it is in the details, descriptions and direction that values help to support business strategy.

… empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility …

As Lencioni argues, working on the definitions and descriptions of each of your values needs to be carefully considered and crafted.

Making your values work for you

Single-word values are pretty useless without further description. Something that makes the word (or words) mean something, that makes them actionable and measurable. Actually the problem is the words themselves. If you find yourself dealing with values like communication, respect, and integrity, ask yourself this, would you want to do business with an organisation which isn’t communicative, shows little respect, or has no integrity?

We need our values to mean something special, so sometimes, that means creating values from multiple parts. Similar behaviours that sit under the same heading are a great way to inject some specificity into your values and give direction and context to anyone who needs it. And, while we’re at it, let’s make them memorable and measurable. Support, rewards and recognition programmes are all great ways of embedding your values so that they exist throughout your organisation.

In other words, let’s use them and make them useful.

“Get your people to engage in the clarity that comes from a well-documented culture of decision-making, behaviour and respect.”

After all, if you’ve made an effort to engage your people around a set of authentic guiding principles, the best thing you can do next is ensure that the effort hasn’t been wasted.

Finding your usable, authentic values

Are your values authentic? Do they guide your teams’ decision-making? Or have you just settled for impressive/boring words to adorn your office walls? Whether you’re in need of a complete values reset, or looking to ensure your values are authentic and, ultimately, useful to your organisation, we can help.

Get in touch to find out how we can help.