I’ve been reading a lot about the importance of company values lately. They’re presented as part of what an organisation is, or does to engage people. Apparently they say something about identity. I don’t get it.
Trust. Respect. Value Creation. Integrity. Heart. Act Wisely.
I assembled this list of values from a number of very well known companies. I shan’t embarrass the companies by naming them but you can Google corporate or company values yourself and quickly build a similar list. At first glance they are the kind of words likely to make you nod sagely in agreement. Who wouldn’t want to deal with a company that espouses trust, respect, etc.? But at the same time, these things are bland, and pretty meaningless. And anyway, organisations, companies, do nothing. They are merely shells into which we pour people, and if we’re lucky, some purpose and motivation too. Then the people in the companies do the stuff. So I’m pretty sure that corporate values are meaningless bits of crap designed to lull people, be they employees, customers, or other stakeholders, into consensus.
And with consensus comes the danger of conformity. In an attempt to adhere to the company values, people stop speaking up, putting forward their good ideas, and their challenges, for fear of being seen as different. So very often these values we read about and which companies proudly display, serve to dull the imagination and limit the creativity which so many organisations desire, and need. I worry that in the climate unwittingly created in many large organisations, the only values that people end up living by are:
1) I do what’s needed in order to keep my job, and
2) I try not to embarrass myself in the process.
When we meet for the first time, we will talk, we will listen, share ideas and stories, and over time we will get to know each other. You will discover what you believe my value is. And importantly, it’s what you think it is, not what I tell you I think it is. People buy people, and the value they perceive in them. And don’t think for one minute that large organisations can’t create this sense of value, as perceived by the customer or colleague. They can. They just seem to think it’s easier not to.
So what do you think? Can corporate values ever amount to more than just a list of bland words or phrases? And if so, how? And does personal value matter in a corporate world which cries out for innovation and creativity, but acts as though it’s truly frightened of these things?
Photo c/o ntr23
Update: 9th November 2010. Since writing this piece I’ve read and listened to some great stuff on personal values. Stuff I’d like to share:
Here’s a great piece by Alison Chisnell about the importance of personal values when the going gets tough at work. I met Alison at The Connecting HR Unconference after which she felt encouraged to start writing. And it’s a great start!
If you have the time, and I do recommend it, check out Shereen Qutob’s 45 min podcast on the importance of values in the workplace. A good useful listen.
And today I read this by Glyn Lumley. An open honest piece about how, when the chips are down it’s important to live great values and having the courage to stick to what is right.
Update: 2nd December 2010. Today David Bowles sent over a link to a very funny Doonesbury cartoon about values which gave me a huge laugh! Thanks David.
Whilst words alone have limited meaning, they can certainly provide an early indicator of what an organisation believes its values to be. Those words can therefore enable the interested party to confirm early on whether they, and the organisation could be – in theory and in part – aligned. Thereafter, the organisation is surely duty-bound to provide clear indicators and, ideally quanitifiable evidence, of those stated values and in a way that gives an insight to the prevailing culture; if it can do this effectively, convincingly and with character, it should be able to convert fleeting interest to sustained interest. So whilst words alone cannot possibly do it, they are a viable first step…however, I do agree that seeing the same words on almost every corporate/careers site does become tedious – all the more reason to bring them to life as quickly as possible.
Hello Sue, appreciate you getting in touch. I guess it’s the “if” sentence that you’ve written which may be the crux of the matter? And from my experience, not many places manage to shift quickly and effectively from the words, to the action or evidence as you suggest. That plus the bland similarity of it all is where I get stuck. I shall post up a discussion which this article started on Facebook which you and others may find interesting. Thanks for your contribution.
OK – so here’s the lift n shift from the Facebook conversation…”Corporate Values Suck. Personal Value Rules. Have I Got That Right?”
David Shanks
No, not always. It’s just that most corporate values have just had the personality and decency sucked out of them. I’m sure What Goes Around has a set of Corporate Values. Or it will do when it grows. Great name, by the way.
Doug Shaw
yeah – great name. It came to me in a dream. A dream about meeting a guy who surprised me with his creativity. We walked in the park and had lunch. I had the skate wings, I think he had the magic potion. You’d like him I’m sure.
Chris
Corporate values try to be all things to all Shareholders and are therefore as tickbox, bland and uncontroversial as possible. Personal values are what you believe as opposed to what you are paid to nod sagely to at Quarterly Conferences and Annual Appraisal time.
Doug Shaw
Hello Chris – nicely put mate, cheers!
David Shanks
Which is why your skate wings were all nicely cleaned and picked and mine looked like roadkill. Too much talking that day, but cool.
David Shanks
Nah I disagree boys. Chris is expressing bad or poorly executed corporate values. A value is a human response and most useless companies simply take the humanity out of the issue. I worked for an agency once whose corporate values were 1. Have Fun. 2. Make Money. 3. Don’t hire assholes.
Doug Shaw
isn’t it up to me to decide what values the company I deal with has? Take your point about poor execution, I know a CEO of a biiiig company who by his actions doesn’t live the company values. Are they worth it? Or is is up to folk to figure, and construct these things themselves. And don’t go telling me to have fun 🙂
Atif
Aren’t corporate value’s just a marketing tool these days…?
Doug Shaw
Surely not Atif – whatever are you suggesting? 🙂 Methinks yup!
David Shanks
Well good corporate values should not come from the company at all, but from the consumers a company seeks to serve or satisfy. They are actually, a visible extension of a clear brand essence which are directly relevant to a company’s true benefit. Our company is called Clear Brand Essence and by definition, our company must be clear, simple, straightforward and easy to understand. It therefore follows that our corporate values as human extensions of this position are approachable, calm, human, intelligent, uncomplicated and efficient. The people we would hire therefore would have attributes which extend and qualify these values which we believe in. And we try and fufill them every day because that’s what gives us our business position and hopefully, advantage. Those companies who subscribe to a silly, pompous, inhuman or contrived set of corporate values are essentially making bad business decisions. The consumer is not a fool.
David Shanks
?…this is what our clients wants from the communications business and what we strive to provide. Less is more.
Doug Shaw
indeed the values which are important are those perceived by the customer, or consumer. So part of the article reads: “You will discover what you believe my value is. And importantly, it’s what you think it is, not what I tell you I think it is. People buy people, and the value they perceive in them. And don’t think for one minute that large organisations can’t create this sense of value, as perceived by the customer or colleague. They can. They just seem to think it’s easier not to.”
Doug Shaw
and yes David – you do help people, me included, to achieve this
David Shanks
Great mate. And I agree with you. I think there must be some invisible point in a company’s culture where a company moves from being about people to being a company. It must be hard to manage and Im sure no company really wants to become a grey building staffed by faceless assholes with no personality, but the needle moves and overnight it happens. Those companies that resist this for longer I guess are ultimately the most successful. Interesting.
Atif
Just to clarify I didn’t read the article. I was too busy living our corporate values, I’m sure you remember them Doug 😉
Doug Shaw
Hey Atif, it’s just nice to hear from you – that’s cool 😉 x 2 Hell I remember ’em alright. Trustworthy, Heart, Inspiring, Straightforward, Honest. I didn’t look ’em up – have I got ’em all? Gulp!
Chris
Hmmm … this is getting fun!The consumer is not a fool …. yup agree with that. An employee is a consumer and therefore the employee is no fool either. A corporate cannot have values that represent it’s employees / consumers (for they are one and the same) because they are indeed too busy being a company and their employees / consumers have lives and values of their own which are important to them. Corporate values are there to try and make a framework that makes employees believe are important ….. except they are consumers and therefore no fools blah blah blah. I do so agree with you though that there is a point where a company decides it’s too big to have cool and striveable (?) company values and goes for dull, drab, meaningless crap.
David Shanks
I don’t think any company deliberately tries to be crap (well maybe some!) but there just seems to come a time when a vacuum starts to exist in the culture and the crapness ( usually in the form of middle management, non entrepreneuerial mediocre ‘careerists’ ) moves in. Then these wallies get promoted and it’s crap from the top down because they have no personal culture to hang onto and therefore invent protective, meaningless defensive nonsense which is designed to avoid everything which resembles standards or responsibility. “Treat your customer like a friend.” Jeez, vomit. As they say, “Only the mediocre are always brilliant.”
David Shanks
These people who perpetuate this crap also perpetuate ‘reorganisation” to keep your eye off off the ball.
Chris
Fair point well made. I have worked in only one corporate where the values were actually (1) lived by and (2) believed in and that was because those at the top lived and breathed them, plus they gave you a hard time if you didn’t (in an employee friendly way of course!). Most of the time those at the top couldn’t give a toss about them though and it is generally “delegated” to someone who ran too slow when the job was announced, to “manage” it across the company. That’s why I buy your statement above David. Of course it could be said that those at the top live to work and those of us lower down the food chain work to live – diametrically opposed values there then and probably a pretty heavy influence on behaviour!!
Owen
“Corporate Values” are a myth, a sham, an illusion. They are a fairytale that we are fed as young keen, bright and enthusiastic employees ! It is a allegory perpetuated by corporations so that you, we, us think we work for ethically responsible and accountable institutions! All smoke and mirrors. It’s about cash, making cash and making more cash (reasonable enough I guess) and Values is just one of the many vehicles used to hide the greed. Personal values are the only true integrity. If we all live by them and start treat each other how we would like to be treated then the world would be a better place (on the whole) and “Corporate Values” as a concept would not be necessary. Looking out for #1 (in a being happy/positive/loving way) is in fact the best way to look out for#2. and now to bed! (buy the way great thread, wish I had read it earlier when you were all still on line!)
Shereen
Hear Hear! I have been a cog in the “corporate values” machine and can truly say it is a load of BS!! Unless those values are built from the collective personal values that govern and translate into action and not just useless fluff. It’s sad when you can clearly SEE those values violated and disregarded YET people still wave that flag as if those words “mean” anything without action .. Grumph!
…and then Karla Porter, over at the Human Capital League added:
“There are a few well known companies that promote the individual as a key element in the organization’s success. Most are still doing “There’s no ‘I’ in TEAM.” While that may be the case – act as always, continue to get the same results. It’s comfortable and safe for most of corporate America, even if it does mean not breaking out of the big box. The C Suite should read this post –> Make them think a little.”
Cheers Karla!
I think corporate values can work if they are truly lived through behaviours that display them – in which case they are a valuable part of the culture and if the culture is robust enough it runs as a really effective way of moderating behaviour in the organisation reducing the need for low value add “compliance HR” actvities. I have seen this working really well in one company who had a great connection between corporate values and how they played out in behaviours to both employees and customers. Guess what the customer satisfaction was high too!
Hello optimalhr – thanks for popping by and contributing. I think your ifs are spot on and I’m inspired that you’ve seen this good stuff in action – linking it round to customer satisfaction is wonderful! Can you say who the company is please? Would be lovely to recognise them, if you can 🙂
Hey Doug, had my nose to the grind stone. I saw this topic weeks ago and just haven’t had the time to respond.
I like corporate values, in fact I love them. However, you definitely have to elevate what you do with them to make them worth while and it’s bloomin hard work. To pick up on your reference to personal values. Personal values help us decide on the right thing to do; they are a big part of our personal code of conduct. Usually they tick along in the back of our minds but when something happens that conflicts with, or challenges our personal values we notice and we react – anger, sadness, frustration, irritation… you know the feeling.
Other times, especially when things aren’t going exactly how we’d like them, we do things that conflict with our personal values. We act on the spur of the moment – it’s that sense of guilt you get after you have done something that you know you probably shouldn’t have done. We then have the challenge of putting it right. The majority of the time having values makes things easier, better, more satisfying but occasionally having values is really hard work.
For me it works the same way in organisations. Good organisational values should describe a collective code of conduct, the way an organisation makes decisions, behaves, acts etc. On the surface organisations may think having them will make them more attractive to customer and employees. But, it’s not having them on a website, or drinking a daily cuppa from mugs that defines an organisation’s values. No siree; an organisation’s values should be seen in the way people behave, the things said and done, the way people treat each other and the experience customers and other stakeholders get.
There is no doubt that it’s easy to be cynical about organisational values. Firstly because most of the time, living values is common sense, easy peasy lemon squeezy. Yeah! And people can feel a bit patronised – it’s that child like response to the critical parent – Organisation says “here’s how we’re telling you to behave” – employee says “Who the hell are you to tell me how to behave; I’m all growed up.” The cynicism is exacerbated by organisations making values gaffs. Nothing wrong with that, organisations are filled with human beings. To gaff is human. But it’s the failure to deal with the gaffs that give the values a bad name. Loads of organisations are too frightened, or it’s just too difficult, or they have put values in place and never had any intention of leading and managing decisions based on them. Not using your values and not dealing with values gaffs, values conflicts and values contradictions is what disengages people. My perspective is that organisational values can be wonderful, you can get people engaged in them, you can create a sense of ownership around them, you can get people to help you differentiate your organisation with them – they’re a guide and an inspiration…. but failure to manage them causes creeping rot.
Oh crap – I’ve written an essay, whoops.
Hey Julia, how nice to hear from you I’m glad you’ve stopped leaning on that grindstone for a while, too much of a good thing eh 😉
I like your essay thanks, I’ve said to you before you have a good way with words, it’s always appreciated when you drop by here. I particularly liked the final paragraph. Gafftastic. And ending on creeping rot, wowzer!