Do Values Matter?
There’s no shortage of research about about the importance of culture and values in creating a “best places to work” environment where people are highly engaged. Some say companies live or die, based on their values. A well defined culture gives you important criteria that helps you choose the right people to join your team. For example, a super smart person who’s a great fit at Microsoft or GE may struggle in a startup that lacks structure and formality.
Values are about greatness. They are about what differentiates you, your competitive advantage, your secret sauce. If they’re generic, there’s no point in having them at all. The test of good values is that they serve as a guideline for making tough choices, they tell you who you should hire (not just because who’s good at what they do), and they let people know what it’s like to work with you and for you.
I’ve seen of values at work, for instance when the credit card verification system at a large e-commerce company went down. There were only two choices: Put orders on hold, or risk losing millions of dollars to credit card fraud. The leader needed only seconds to make this difficult decision; to him, the choice was obvious. This company’s values emphasized trusting loyal customers and he wouldn’t dream of penalizing them for an internal systems failure.
Take a look at the values below. Where would you rather work?
| Company A* | Company B |
| •Deliver WOW Through Service.
•Embrace and Drive Change. •Create Fun and A Little Weirdness. •Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded. •Pursue Growth and Learning. •Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication. •Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit. |
•Customer Satisfaction is key
•Strive for Innovation & Ingenuity •We are Caring & Compassionate •Leadership is our competitive advantage •We’re a Learning Organization •We pride ourselves on Fairness, Teamwork, and Collaboration |
Large organizations are well versed in values mapping exercises, and go through them periodically. But what if you’re a startup, or a new company making your first few hires? You need to get your leaders aligned, but you may not know where to start. I’ve done values work with leadership teams from companies of various sizes from different industries and always found them incredibly, well, valuable. At Reverb, we just launched our own updated values. If you’re thinking about your values but haven’t yet put pen to paper, here’s an approach that works every time.
Company Values Come from Individual Values
Below I suggest two different starting points, and no matter which you choose you will come up with a good set of values. You need to commit to including the team, putting in the time and effort needed, staying open minded, and leaving plenty of room for discussion and iteration. One requirement – you need to be (or have) a decisive leader who’s willing to make a call when the team can’t reach consensus.
Remember that the first values you come up with are not not set in stone. Perfectionism will only lead to paralysis. Once you come up with the list of five to seven values you believe in, sit with them for a while to see how they feel. Pay attention to what works, what doesn’t, and what’s missing. Get the team back together for a refresh in about a year, and make changes if needed. Then you should be good for another three to five years at least. Even if your business model, service or product changes, values are a stable foundation that are about behavior and are product agnostic.
Getting Started
- Values Sort: Every member of the leadership team is given a list or deck of cards known as a values deck, representing the top 30 or so human values, with at least one wild card to add their own. Cards are fun, but The Good Project also offers an easy way to do this online.
Using a values deck, the idea is to quickly reduce the values by half, then half again, then ask each person to identify his/her top 5. Go fast, and don’t over think it. Go with your gut. It is not easy to “discard” values like Integrity, Health, and Adventure. But like everything else you do, choosing your values is an exercise in prioritization.
2) Top Performer: Another way to get started is to focus on attributes of your favorite high performers. Each person writes down the name of the very best person they’ve hired or worked with. Don’t generalize – you actually need to write the name and think about that person, then list as many positive characteristics as you can. Be specific. What made this person great? Think about his or her character; things like integrity, humility, sense of humor, etc.
The Messy Middle
No matter how you started the exercise, the remaining steps are the same. Each participant creates individual sticky notes – one for each of their top 5 values. Write in marker, big enough to read easily from a distance. Everyone randomly sticks their post-its on a wall. The fun begins as the team silently approaches the wall and groups similar post-its together in clusters. You should have many clusters. The grouping continues in silence as people move the post-its, move them again, combine clusters and create new ones. You’re done when the activity has dwindled and the team steps back to take in the big picture.
Discuss the buckets, what they mean, and why people chose the values they did. Look for overlap and continue to refine your clusters. Talk about what’s missing. Remember the whole point of having values is to define who you are and how you work. As you reflect on what you’ve come up with ask yourselves – Are they unique? Do they sound like us? Will they give customers and future employees a good idea what it’s like to work with you? You’ll need a couple volunteers to go off and do some word-smithing, then share a final draft with the group.
Beyond Posters and Coffee Mugs: Making Values Stick
Do people need to know your values? Yes. Do you need coffee mugs and laminated signs to reinforce them? Probably not. But remember, your employees have a lot to keep track of. Not only values, but your mission, vision,company and individual goals are also important. Fun reminders like a symbol or mascot can be helpful – see Qumulo’s Grumpquat as an example. Most important is how you integrate the values into your processes for hiring, promoting, recognizing and rewarding employees. When values become part of your everyday language, you know they’re going to stick.
* Company A is Zappos, and Company B is a compilation of frequently used values at Fortune 500 companies
If you need help defining your values, contact us for a free HR & Culture review today!
