FINDING YOUR WHY...
Unless you are working on your own, you will not be able to define your company’s core values without involving others. You may be able to include everyone in your company; if not, you should aim to have as much diversity in the group as possible. In this sense, diversity must include representation of the different divisions or functions within your company and different levels of seniority. The accountants may not think in the same way as the marketers and the interns may not think in the same way as the senior positions.
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We will cover brainstorming in detail in another section, but for now you should consider how you are going to gather responses. For exercises such as this, there’s very few methods better than having everyone in the same room armed with packs of sticky notes but you may want to run an online survey or some other method.
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You will need to ask questions in two ways. You are not only asking what the values are but you will also ask what the values are not. In the same way as Enron described that ruthlessness was not welcome to indicate how important respect was, you can learn a lot about what your values are if you consider what they are not.
Here are some sample questions you can use to gather some statements about the views your respondents have. Before you copy and paste them into a PowerPoint, you should review them. There is a paradox that many companies will ask external agencies to find out who they are. Consultants, management books and websites like this will be used, however the tools offered will always be generic in nature.
Look at these questions and choose them, omit them or change them. You may find that the sessions are moving in an unexpected direction and you change the questions mid-process. This is absolutely fine. You know who you are, you know what feels right and what doesn’t, you’re just working through a series of actions to express it.
At this point, there is no need to constrain the responses; you do not want anyone writing essays but they should feel free to express images or general descriptions.
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What have been your best experiences, what was happening and which values were being exercised at the time.
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Conversely, what were your worst experiences, what were you feeling and which of your values were being affected.
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What are the values you think are important in how you and others act, which values do you try to exemplify and uphold.
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When you or others act in a way that you are uncomfortable with, which values are being suppressed.
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Who are we trying to help and what are we trying to improve for them
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When you are talking about working here, what makes you proud. What makes you ashamed.
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What do you do even if there is no bonus or reward offered for it
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If you moved to a new job, division or country which values would you take with you
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If you started at a company in a completely different field, which values would you maintain.
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Which values would you stand up for, even if you though you would lose your job.
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What do you want to do for people even if they can do nothing for you
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The respondents can create as many view statements as answers as they want, however each statement must contain only one concept. If a statement crosses multiple concepts, it should be split into separate statements.
You should now have a number of view statements in front of you. Everybody in the team must spend some time together grouping these into themes. You should expect there to be some repetition and some concepts that are similar to those around them.
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If there is a clear repetition, then feel free to remove it. If there are concepts that are similar, keep them all grouped together.
The team can now look at each of these groups and generate a theme statement that summarizes the contents of the group. This can be a complete sentence describing a number of different but related concepts. The Intuit value statements at the end of this section are a good example of how these can look.
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You now have your theme statements. Take a step back and look at them as a complete picture: do all of these statements match each other, do they all describe values that can exist together?
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You may find that you have some themes that seem to contradict each other: you may have one statement that describes ensuring quality regardless of cost and another that is to deliver a product that is at the most affordable price to the customer.
Take some time to think about the wording and the intent behind these statements, they may not be exclusive of each other. You may find that this incongruity highlights a problem with one of the statements that needs to be reviewed and refined.
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If you still have contradictory value statements, you must now consider what that means to your organisation. Does this mean you have to sacrifice one of your values to maintain cohesion? Does it mean that your organisation should be made up of related but separate operational units. For example, you may have a research and development center that exists with a different strategic intent than a manufacturing facility.
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The only people that can decide how this should be reconciled are the people in the company, these are their values that are being described.
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The values that have now been defined should be reviewed. Look at them again with the questions that were asked in the first stages, do they provide a conceptual response to the questions that everyone is comfortable with.
Do they have an inherent value. Would you the company to maintain them even if it resulted in a competitive disadvantage. You may have described ethically sourced materials, are you prepared to take on any additional costs that would be incurred to avoid compromising this value?
Do the represent the core of the company’s belief system? If the company grows or contracts, will they still be relevant? Will they still be relevant in 5 years’ time, 10 years’ time or a hundred years’ time like those of Disney?
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If the answer to all these questions is positive and if the core value statements just feel right, then they probably are right.
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Here’s a fantastic example from Intuit:
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These values are central to our culture. They’ve been our guiding star since our founding in 1983. They’ve allowed us to thrive through our many transformations. They make us what we are today.
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Be Passionate – You’re here because of your unique talents and the fire in your belly to do something meaningful. It shines through in ways that raises the bar for all of us. Never stop growing.
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Be Decisive – Have a point of view based on data, experience, and instincts. Make the call and own the outcome. Speed matters, because the greatest risk is standing still.
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Learn Fast – We’re in love with customer problems more than our solutions. We walk in our customers’ shoes and experiment our way to success. The only failure is the failure to learn fast.
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Be Bold – We can see the future in what we do because we’re creating it together. We constantly seek inspiration and connect dots that no one else does. We don’t shy away for the world’s biggest problems. It takes courage
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Win Together – Small diverse teams drive our work and 90% of the decisions are made here. We accelerate each other in pursuit of our mission. We break down barriers. Together, we are one Intuit.
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A word of warning.
There is a temptation to try to use whichever phrases are currently in vogue in management books. These always include enticing words like ethical, innovative or customer-centric. If these are truly reasons why you exist then definitely include them; if not, then leave them out to ensure that they do not dilute your understanding of where you are now.
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If you are looking to reinvent your company or direction, you can keep these aspirations in mind and use them in one the of the later sections in which we look at where you want to go next. For now, this exercise should focus on what you are doing now, and how you are doing it.
