Josie Salkey investigates.
Here is a typical set of corporate values: communication, respect, integrity and excellence. All good stuff, right? Well, yes, but truly valuable to the organisation? In this case, no. These were the values of Enron circa 2001 – and we all know how that story ended. So how can values help to build a competitive advantage? And how can we make them meaningful to a workforce whose collective nose is finely tuned for the faintest whiff of corporate bull***t?
The truth about values programmes
You can’t read the management press without coming across a company trumpeting about how it rolled out a values programme to employees, but what does this ‘programme’ typically involve?
The first step, of course, is an expensive executive retreat where senior leadership – with help from a clutch of smooth-talking consultants – brainstorm some values and uncover the new ‘soul’ of the business that will triple the share price or help it act as ‘one company.’ Step two is to create a snazzy logo and brief middle management, and step three is to communicate the values to employees and get them all ‘on board.’
The problem is that by this last stage, the inspirational ideas that had executives falling over themselves have become abstract concepts. What lands on the employee’s desk is a branded mousemat, a DVD and a special issue of the company newsletter. It becomes instant wallpaper and the initiative bites the dust.
Just another initiative
Of course, not every values initiative follows this woeful formula – shared, values can be a vital tool to align the workforce around a common set of principles. There are some familiar traits to successful values programmes and the first is that they are not seen as a one-off ‘programme’ or ‘initiative.’
Karen Callaghan, UK People Leader at fruit smoothie company Innocent, says the phrase ‘values programme’ sounds contrived and inauthentic (see case study). A PR-style approach to values that are thrust on employees can mean they are doomed from the outset, she warns. When this happens, values can all too easily be lost in an organisational fog of corporate values, brand values, vision, mission, KPIs, brand promises, customer promises and so on ad infinitum. “There can sometimes be too much jargon and too many initiatives,” says Jan Thornbury, consultant and author of Living Culture: A values-driven approach to revitalising your company culture¹. “Then it’s like having lots of jigsaw pieces but nobody has the picture from the top of the box.”
Values: uncovered or created?
Secondly, successful companies uncover the values that already exist at the core of their business – they don’t create them. The most well-known piece of research around vision and values is undoubtedly Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras², published in 1994. They found that ‘great’ companies – those with a strong, shared sense of core ideology – outperformed the stock market by a ratio of 16 to 1. The key word here is ‘core.’ The values held by these visionary companies are central tenets that do not alter with the current business environment, latest CEO or new management trend. As strategies and leaders change, the core values are preserved.
In Thornbury’s experience, the most successful organisations are those that uncover their core values in order to strengthen their culture and make it explicit. There are also those that want to use values to change their culture. “Aspirational values are OK,” she says, “as long as the values aren’t totally different from what the organisation could ever be. It must be a genuinely shared aspiration with authentic commitment to making it happen.”
However, using values to shift company culture is what Jeremy Starling of The Eventworks describes as “a change programme with values thrown in.” He says, “Too many companies approach values in a faddish way. Values are about saying, ‘we stand for this and we always will, no matter what.”’
Getting employees involved
Whether changing or reinforcing the culture, if you want your values – existing or aspirational – to be authentic, you must involve employees. “You need to have companywide consultation to find common ground and make implicit values conscious,” says Thornbury. “Values must be front-driven and bottom up,” adds Tracy Whybrow, head of the change team, at The Eventworks. “How can we talk about a customer-related value if your front-line employee is not involved?”
“No involvement, no commitment,” agrees Paul Samuels, Group Internal Communications Director at market research firm TNS. “No company should be arrogant enough to push its values onto employees.” He advocates focus groups and OpenSpace technology as ways to uncover authentic values and get employees involved from the start. “Look at your values and ask yourself: ‘Is this real?’” he adds. “If it’s not real, it’s not worth doing.”
Dull or differentiated?
The ‘same old same old’ nature of the values themselves can also, according to some, render them ineffective. Corporate think-a-like values such as ‘professionalism,’ ‘integrity’ or ‘customer service’ are so common they will hold little water for the average front-line employee. Jeremy Starling adds, “Customer service is a basic principle of a successful business, not a value.”
However, what really drives differentiation and competitive advantage – and can help tackle employee cynicism – is not the wording of the values but how those values are actually applied. After all, if 20,000 employees can recite a checklist of five corporate values, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they will all start behaving differently. Ask yourself, is anything actually different as a result of the values? And can people see those differences every day?
Collins and Porras also believe that values are not “an exercise in wordsmithery.” The role of values or core ideology, is “to guide and inspire, not to differentiate,” they say. It is the application of those values – how passionately they are lived in the organisation and the culture that’s built around them – that, ultimately, will make a difference.
Make the change
Far too much effort is put into awareness and understanding of values, says Thornbury, while tangible, values-based change is often neglected. “If you espouse teamwork as a value but most people are shut in their offices behind closed doors, this says something about how serious you really are about the value.”
Leaders who ‘walk the talk’ are another vital tool to help embed values in an organisation. “Active support from leadership is key, “ says Russell Grossman, Head of Change and Internal Communication at HMRC. “Communications departments are often under pressure just to produce something glitzy,” he says, “but with values, the key intervention is to change the behaviour of senior leaders.” Leadership guru Marshall Goldsmith³ notes that leaders’ “actions will say much more to employees about our values than our words ever can.”
Starting a conversation
Conversations rather than posters or intranet scan also help values resonate with individuals. “If an employee is told they will be rewarded for living a value of ‘being pioneering,’” says Starling, “a conversation needs to happen around how they can be pioneering in their day-to-day role and what the tangible, specific results of this behaviour would be. He adds, “You can use values to get 40,000 people rowing in the same direction – and that’s a pretty powerful tool.”
At Lombard Asset Finance, regular, real-life examples help link values to behaviour and give employees inspirational, yet meaningful, snapshots of values in action (see case study). This process of gradually weaving values into the DNA of an organisation is what Grossman refers to as ‘socialising the values.’ This, he warns, “takes a long time and requires an internal communicator with tenacity and resilience.” While Lombard’s Aidan McAvinue attributes at least some of his company’s recent growth to sticking to their values, he also advises having patience when it comes to implementation and results.
Where’s the value add?
So, is there any value in corporate values? Those values that are authentic, meaningful and reinforced by everyday behaviour – and communication – have the potential to align and unify a workforce. But a checklist of flowery statements without consistent action to back them up will fool no one.
Whether you are reinforcing your existing culture or trying to improve it, values are not a quick fix – you’ve got to be in it for the long haul. If you want to get value out of your values – and keep the bull***t alarm silent – keep them real, be persistent and remember – it’s about actions, not words.
Case Study 1 - Natural values at INNOCENT
Karen Callaghan is a busy person. As Innocent’s UK People Leader she is responsible for, among other things, bringing great people into the business – and for a company growing as fast as Innocent, that’s a lot of recruitment. The company’s values, she says, are key to enabling successful growth. “Having strong values allows us to attract and retain great people, and they also define how to be successful in our business.”
Despite its rapid growth – from a three-person start-up in 1999 to over 100 employees and a turnover of £75m today – the company’s culture has remained distinctly ‘non-corporate.’ “The phrase ‘values programme’ sounds contrived,” says Callaghan. “Our first value is ‘be natural’ and this also sums up our approach to values themselves. With our values, we’re not trying to create something that doesn’t exist, we’ve simply tried to codify what’s at the heart of the business.” Innocent’s four other values are: be entrepreneurial, be responsible, be commercial and be generous.
Companies that get values wrong, says Callaghan, often take a PR-style approach, launching an internal marketing campaign to promote values to employees. “Ultimately, values are about behaviour, and if you want to influence behaviour you can’t do it through one-way communication – you have to focus on conversations.” Innocent encourages employees to talk about values in action – but in a fun, natural way. “If you let people talk about values in their own words, through anecdotes and stories, you add colour and bring values to life,” she says.
And what’s her advice for a company thinking of identifying or enhancing its values? “Don’t force it. Remember, your values define your culture, and whilst you would hope they are compelling, it helps if they reflect reality. If they don’t, work on the culture, don’t just publish a new set of values.”
Case Study 2 - Sharing examples of values in action at LOMBARD
“Bringing values to life in an organisation takes investment, effort and patience,” says Aidan McAvinue, Head of Business Management at Lombard Asset Finance. With the arrival of a new MD at the end of 2004 and what can only be deemed a complete cultural overhaul since, McAvinue and his colleagues have been working to instill Lombard’s values – entrepreneurial, team oriented, customer focused and performance driven – throughout the business with the end goal of ‘Making Lombard Great!’
A visual brand based on a selection of colourful characters was created for each value and booklets produced with definitions and behaviours. “This creates a hook,” says McAvinue, “but we recognised very early that real examples are the most lucrative way to communicate values. Linking values to examples of everyday success is a great way to lift them off the page.”
McAvinue constantly seeks stories of individuals ‘Living the Values’ and shares them on the intranet and in the company magazine. Recognition also comes in the form of gala dinners, award ceremonies or a personal note from the MD. “Others see this person’s success and how it is celebrated and rewarded,” he says. “They link recognition and success with real, achievable examples of living the values and, we hope, seek to emulate that behaviour.”
“Values are threaded through everything we do and are explicitly linked to employee success and happiness,” says McAvinue. The way forward is to keep recognising and sharing examples of success and he says, “to keep it simple, fresh and creative.”
This article was originally published Summer 2007.
Further Reading:
¹ Living Culture: A values-driven approach to revitalising your company culture, by Jan Thornbury, latest edition 2000.
² Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies, by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, first published 1994, latest edition published in 2005.
³ What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter, latest edition published 2007.
Josie Salkey is a freelance writer and editor specialising in internal communication. She was previously editor of Melcrum's membership website, The Hub.
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