Values are what underpin a company culture. For both current and potential employees, these values can be real differentiating factors, ones that drive people to work at, stay at, or even leave certain organizations. These days, most companies have a set of values that sets them apart. Or so they say… But do they set them apart? And what actually is a company value anyway and how does that translate into company culture?
Company values are the core principles that guide the way your teams work together. They’re the moral code of your organization. So often, companies claim the same nice-sounding but totally non-specific values. We’ve all read the same value statements dozens of times: honesty, teamwork, kindness, creativity…the list goes on. Without definition or specificity, they’re just platitudes, and they’re up for interpretation, really.
The work of defining values is deep and important. Defining values requires making strategic bets on where your company is going and what you need to do, as an organization, in order to get there. It requires meeting with employees individually and in groups, conducting surveys and interviews and thinking long and hard about what matters. Our companies and organizations are made up of all the individuals inside of them, so any vague value statements can be understood or lived in myriad different ways. To make them concrete, we need to get specific. We need to define them – both through clear behaviors and clear limits.
So let’s say you know your values, in broad strokes. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with honesty, teamwork, kindness and creativity, not at all. These have the potential to be excellent values, they just need a little nudge towards specificity. This is definitely an arena in which actions speak louder than words. Give your employees clear guidance so they can align their behaviors, and in turn, live your company values. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Take teamwork for example. This sounds good on the surface, but what does it mean exactly and how can we ensure that everyone understands it in the same way? Try something like “Step in to help when someone needs it,” or “Recognize the impact of your attitude and behavior on others.” In fact, teamwork can mean both of these things, and more. And at your organization, it might mean something completely different – that’s where the work of defining your values comes in.
As another example: customer-centricity. You could define this by saying, “Stay focused on providing our customers with the best possible experience,” or “Stay curious about our customers and their needs.” Or maybe there’s something else, in your organization, that you really need employees to bring to their interactions with your customers – that specificity, that uniqueness is what you want to emphasize.
On the flipside of specifying what exactly your values mean, it can be helpful to define their shadow sides or their limits. In other words, get clear about “what not to do.” This type of delineation helps guide the embodiment of your company’s values, and ultimately, its culture. Think of it as setting healthy boundaries for your values. Let’s return to our examples.
We’ve defined teamwork as stepping in to help others. We can qualify that further by adding, “Don’t sacrifice your own wellbeing to serve others” or “Don’t solve people's problems for them.” For the value of customer-centricity, we can limit this by saying something like, “Don’t lose focus of what matters most,” or “Don’t ignore the impact on our own organization.”
Any value taken to an extreme could pose just as much danger to your organization as not having the value altogether. It is therefore essential to provide these sorts of guardrails with and for employees to ensure that you are driving the right behavior for your organization.
At the end of the day though, what good do company values do if you can’t hold people accountable? How do you assess where your organization stands in terms of its aspirational culture? And how do you do all of this in a remote/hybrid work environment when employees are working more cross-functionally and asynchronously than ever before?
This is exactly why we built Incompass. Our 360s are focused on measuring key behaviors so you can get insights into your company values and culture. We help companies transform qualitative, anecdotal and sometimes biased information…into quantified 360 perspectives and feedback. See how your teams measure up in terms of your company culture. And reward those who are living and demonstrating your values. As we all learn and grow and take in more perspectives – in the workplace and beyond – it’s important to take stock of our values, shifting them and moving them forward in time.
In our experience, we’ve found that 360s work best when they measure the key behaviors associated with company values. And if you don’t yet have clearly defined values, we can help. We step in to guide our clients in defining those values so you can actually measure (and incentivize) the key behaviors to drive your culture forward. Get in touch to learn more.
