What we think < Our Values
All of a sudden companies are professing their values –
a handful of key words, phrases or ideas that are meant to define
what your business stands for; to become your core rules.
A huge chunk of money is handed over to an agency, who will ‘um
and ah’ for a while in developing a business engagement strategy
before calling a series of focus group meetings with a representative
cross section of employees designed to elicit their thoughts of
working for you.
The feedback is recorded, analysed and considered; and there is
the big session where the agency presents back to you five or so
statements that have come from the focus groups.
These words or phrases will become your Values and will suddenly
appear on banners within the building, as a logo on internal communications,
as a footer on presentation slides, on letterhead, mugs and pens.
And some companies will even take the whole values thing further
by dedicating an internal awards process to identify and reward
the people who best represent the values in the work that they have
done during the year.
Psst! Lean in close and listen up.
The whole corporate values thing actually has no value –
it’s nothing more than a bunch of words and phrases that help
senior managers to believe that they are managing effectively. Among
those who buy into the value thing anyway; the rest agree that if
a company has to define its values it means that it really doesn’t
have any.
How can the value of teamwork apply to the person who remains within
their silo and shares nothing with anybody else?
How can the value of pride apply to the person who allows substandard
work to go out the door?
How can the value of passion apply to the person who hates their
job?
How can any company identify its top five values? There are hundreds
upon hundreds of qualities and characteristics which people need
to display during their professional lives and each one is just
as important as the next.
Companies should stick with just one core value that applies to
everybody from the CEO on down to the lowest band support person:
do your job well.