Today, almost every company aims to be value-driven. Executives are pushing their organizations to create grand statements, often known as core values, guiding principles and aspirations.
Examples abound of high-performing organizations that have replaced stifling rules and policies with fundamental values supporting the culture they desire. Designing these lofty declarations is a good idea; nevertheless, many such exercises elicit snickers from the employees they are intended to inspire. Managers and front-line workers humor their bosses by placing their left hands over their hearts, raising their right hands, pledging commitment to the pretty words—and going back to work. In fact, one organization went through a value clarification, and the process became derisively known as kidney stone management. The employees’ attitude was: “It’s going to hurt for a while, but this too shall pass.”
Two common problems organizations face in defining values occur when they are designing the statements and putting them into action. Companies err by failing to boil their messages down to a few core statements or words. As a result, values statements become a laundry list pledging to be everything to everybody. In one extreme case, a Canadian utility handed out pocket-sized folders to its thousands of employees listing the organization’s 36 values. Anything beyond three to four core values is of no value at all. As with so many issues of strategy and culture, executives need to set priorities about what’s really important to the organization. Core values are those few words or short statements that act as central hooks on which to hang the key behavioral guidelines that shape everyone’s actions.
An even bigger challenge is how to instill the values after they have been articulated. Many executives make a mockery of the exercise because their actions aren’t connected to their words. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz once observed, “There’s a big difference between a bumper sticker and a philosophy.” Some executives have created “bumper sticker values” that they negate through contradictory actions.
For example, the president of a major retailing chain repeatedly discussed trust and partnerships. At the same time, he expressed his frustration over store managers who weren’t entrepreneurial enough to keep merchandise that was mistakenly overshipped but not invoiced by suppliers. “After all,” he explained, “these companies are always jerking us around.”
In other cases, executives who name teamwork as a core value don’t recognize how their own failures to work within teams creates cynicism. One group discovered the sniping they did to each other often led to whole departments sniping at each other. Factions would point accusing fingers when something went wrong, and erect walls around their turfs. Not surprising, cross-functional teams floundered.
Perhaps the hardest leadership test of all is consistently showing, rather than simply stating, what the organization stands for. Many executives have done their values thing and produced pretty parchment papers filled with inspiring words. However, many are frustrated because managers, supervisors and front line employees aren’t getting the message. But people do get the executives’ message. They hear them loud and clear.
BY JIM CLEMMER
This article originally appeared in Jim Clemmer’s column “The Globe & Mail.” His practical leadership books, keynote presentations, workshops and team retreats have helped hundreds of thousands of people worldwide improve personal, team and organizational leadership. Visit www.clemmer.net for a huge selection of free practical resources, including nearly 300 articles, dozens of video clips, team assessments, leadership newsletter, Improvement Points service and a popular leadership blog.