Standing up for values

Creating or refreshing company values can be a daunting prospect whether you’re the leader of a business or you’ve been tasked to manage a programme.  Poorly thought out and badly executed values can cause more ill than good, but at a time where employees are reporting that they feel a greater sense of professional belonging to their company than to their profession, function, team or boss, authentic values can be a powerful way to increase and sustain engagement. Below are 5 thoughts you might find useful if you’re considering what to do about your company values:

Feeling daunted? That’s a good thing

When you take some time to consider what you’re embarking on, you might find that a little humility goes a long way.  After all, values are the principles that help you decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in different situations.  They’re standards of behaviour learned since childhood, and we feel a deep sense of personal discomfort when our values are compromised.  Company values are held up in the same way, as signposts for acceptable (and by contrast unacceptable) behaviour, only they apply to everyone.  Taking responsibility for laying out how other people should behave, even if that’s just one more person than you, ought to feel at least a little daunting.

It isn’t quick and easy

In fact, it’s the opposite. As the leadership author Patrick Lencioni notes, coming up with strong values – and sticking to them – takes real guts, because they inflict pain on a company.  A new set of values can make some employees feel like they no longer fit in, or like they were lacking in positive behaviours beforehand. People, especially leaders, suddenly become open to criticism for the slightest of infringements, and behaviours that have previously been tolerated are constrained.  After all, company values signpost behaviours that shape a desired (and hopefully positive) culture.  But behaviours and culture already exist, and behavioural and cultural change takes time and patience.  Acceptance at the outset that values initiatives are challenging and take time, will help keep you motivated on the way.

Similar doesn’t mean the same

Company values can sometimes reflect the character of the original founders, but more often than not, are developed through formal programmes when headcount has reached a certain size (typically where top-level leaders are no longer practically able to interact with every employee on a regular basis).  A common complaint about company values programmes is that the output appears the same wherever you look (run a google search around how many companies cite integrity as proof of this argument).  This is partly due to poor programmes where the selection of values is rushed without consideration of how they complement the company mission and/or an aspired culture.  But it’s also because when you ask people what kind of environment gets the best out of them, they tend to use similar language to describe the positive values that act as the enabler.  Put glibly, people think: trust, respect, collaboration and passion, not: lies, contempt, solitude, and apathy. Ultimately, it is how people act out positive values, how they express them, that makes a company environment unique, not just the words that are chosen to describe them.  People’s value based actions create the authentic stories that can’t simply be copied.

Own the process, share the integration

Whether you’re the leader of the business or not you need to ensure the most senior leader is fully involved in any company values programme.  Anything less is a recipe for trouble.  Values initiatives are less about building consensus and more about providing a clear set of behavioural standards for a broad group, that’s linked to the strategy and clarifies what people are able to identify with (or not!).  Values formulated without top-leader input can be undermined by the very same leader in a heartbeat through an ill-timed word or decision.  Top down direction (no apologies for this are required) is balanced by the crucial involvement of  everyone at every level in integrating your values, a process that never stops.  Encourage people at every level to weave your values into the way they work, the processes and systems they use, the conversations they have, and the stories they tell.

Don’t forget it’s worth it

I recently met a leader who was closely involved in the creation and integration of a new set of company values in response to a new vision for the organisation.  At the start of the programme, this leader was not without cynicism about undertaking a values initiative when there were so many other things to do with so little time to do them in. Fast forward three years and the same leader describes how the company is unrecognisable, not so much in what it does, but in the way that it goes about doing it. Values feature in all key touch-points within the employee lifecycle and value based behaviours are celebrated and rewarded. In contrast, poor or unhelpful behaviours that were previously accepted for short term expediency (causing longer term pain) are tolerated far less when held up against a defined set of values. When I asked what has changed, although there is still much to be done, she cites their values programme as a foundational and necessary step in a large and positive cultural change that’s set them up for the future. Ultimately its helped create the platform for an environment where more people look forward to coming to work and making a difference. When values programmes are run well, they can be hugely, well, valuable.

If you are thinking about creating  or refreshing your company values and would like to talk about the above in more detail, visit www.sapiencoaching.com or drop an email to info@sapiencoaching.com