If you don't define your values, someone else will.
When I look at massive fraud cases like Enron, Theranos, and FTX, all of which had compelling missions, values, and ethical standards, I wonder how those within the companies didn't speak up and hold their leaders accountable to their own standards? The answer of course is that some did, and were silenced or fired as a result, and others were too conflicted by the role they played. One executive at Enron committed suicide before testifying at court, and the Chief Scientist at Theranos committed suicide a day before his deposition. To the whistleblowers like Sherron Watkins, Erika Cheung, and Tyler Shultz, the threat of losing their jobs, lawsuits, and being blacklisted was outweighed by their compulsion to do what's right.
The real values in these companies were the unwritten expectations and behaviours enabled by the leaders to perpetuate cultures of dishonesty, greed, and hubris. This cognitive dissonance between what they said and what they did must have made it extremely difficult for staff to truly understand what was going on behind the scenes, let alone having the clarity and courage to say something.
Why values matter
I share this to highlight that when we ignore our collective values, whether consciously or not, we play with people's lives. We play with the lives of our staff, our customers, and the wider community. Values are not limited to internal marketing theatrics or a picture for our desktop backgrounds. Our values define who we aspire to be, guiding our behaviours, decisions, and actions every day. They are a common language for everyone at every level of an organisation to test whether what we're doing, or being asked to do, aligns with our values or not. If it doesn't, we should be empowered to speak up for ourselves and for the company, to do better and be better. This is how we maintain our personal and corporate integrity, correcting any course that could harm our company, staff, customers, or communities.
As part of creating Culture Coach, I reflected for a long time on why I was doing this in the first place, what I cared about, and how I wanted to show up for my work with people. Through this exercise I defined my mission and values, which are now publicly expressed to hold myself accountable, and for others to hold me accountable:
My mission is to help individuals, teams, and organisations do their best work, and have fun doing it
My Values are:
People over process, structure, and profit
Sustainable value over short-term results
Creative innovation over staying the course
Inviting change over setting expectations
Going deep over solving symptoms
That is, while I value things on the right, I place greater value on the left.
I wish I could say I've always been driven by my mission and values, but for most of my career, I've had little clarity on what they were, beyond wanting to increase my status, influence, and wealth. Because of this vacuum of values, I let others define them for me, and often behaved in ways I am now ashamed of. In many instances I have failed to treat others with dignity, agency, and respect, as well as myself. At times I've deceived, minimised, and manipulated in order to make myself look better at the expense of my integrity. I've suffered burnout, depression, and self-sabotage, from what I now see as a series of compromising who I am and what I stand for.
Putting values to the test
To test the integrity of your company's values, ask yourself what would happen if you questioned a colleague after they asked you to do something that conflicted with the company's values. What if it was your boss, or the CEO? Would your question likely trigger them to reflect on whether the request was aligned with your shared values, or trigger a demand to just get it done? If the latter, then another, more important value is being communicated: do what you're told. This can present something like a trolley dilemma; either challenge the demand and risk being run over, or stay silent and risk others being squashed.
For companies operating in the grey area between their stated values and what is valued in practice, a better starting point would be to explicitly define what the company values in reality, even if that includes control, conformance, or capitulation. That would at least provide an honest starting point and highlight the cognitive dissonance between the company's stated values and what's valued in practice.
Tools to take values more seriously
If your company is struggling with the conflict between its stated values, and how people really behave and are rewarded, there are tools available to help you define, articulate, and practice your values in a way that can become a common language for everyone, guiding behaviours, decisions, and actions. Once you have established your collective values, you can start building on that foundation by expanding and refining your values to align with the culture you want to cultivate.
The first is a simple statement that people can publicly pledge as a commitment to living out the company values, aspiring to continually improve how you live them out each day. You don't have to be an executive to start this. Everyone should be empowered to take company values more seriously. You can view the template here. Note that this is only effective if your company has meaningful values that reflect real aspirations of the company, its culture, and its history. If your company doesn't have this yet, I suggest starting with defining that first.
The Pledge comprises 4 areas:
1. Clarity: Understanding your company values and clearly describing what you mean by them.
2. Practice: Putting your values into action throughout the company.
3. Impact: Reflecting on and measuring the impact your values have internally and externally.
4. Continuous improvement: Learning from your efforts and continuously improving the way you bring your values to life in everything you do.
Once you've established some support and momentum with the pledge, you can start to map out embedding values across your orgnanisation. Below is a guide to start with, which will likely need executive support. I'd suggest starting small and let the momentum grow naturally before adding structure. Underpinning this approach is personal accountability, agency, and voluntary contribution, much like a community project, and would be undermined by rolling it out like any other internal programme across the company.
1. Clarity - our values are...
Identified with wide-spread employee and other stakeholder involvement based on our experience of being at our best, so they are real and not imagined.
Described in simple and practical terms.
Communicated regularly: internally and externally; formally and informally.
Understood by all: what they are, what they mean, and how they connect at a personal level.
2. Practice – our values are...
Visible and used everywhere by people at all levels, in behaviours, decisions, and actions.
Embedded in our policies and processes.
Actively used to make decisions about the direction and development of the business, including our strategy and governance.
Reflected in how we spend our time and our resources, both inside the company, and in relationships with partners and stakeholders.
Championed by leaders at all levels, recognising examples of values driven behaviour, and behaviour that conflicts with our values.
3. Impact – we will...
Give each other constructive feedback and hold ourselves accountable.
Seek, measure, share and act upon the perceptions of our people, customers, service partners/suppliers and other stakeholders.
Use a combination of objective assessment and subjective feedback including self-reflection.
Publicly report values and culture metrics and achievements alongside financial and other business indicators.
4. Continuous improvement – we will...
Take time to reflect on our key decisions, consciously referring to our values.
Learn from all the available information and perceptions to continuously improve how we live out our values.
Tackle the complexity of competing values through open conversations and debate.
Review and update policies and processes to reflect our learning.
Share what we’ve learned with other organisations, clients, and partners, and learn from their experience.
Questions for reflection
Below are some questions to reflect on daily and/or weekly to help you on the journey to embedding values into everything you do. These can be used either individually or tweaked for regular team reflections.
How would I rate my behaviours, decisions, and actions against our values today / this week on a scale of 1-5?
What specific situations spring to mind when I reflect on our values today/this week? How did I show up for myself and others?
What’s one thing I could I change tomorrow/next week to better apply our values to the areas I'm working in?
What’s one piece of feedback based on situation today/this week that I could share with another team member to encourage their efforts in living out our values?
Meaningfully embedded values are vital to the health our organisations, and we ignore them at great cost to ourselves, our colleagues, our companies, and our communities. If you would like support in defining, refining, or bringing your values to life in your organisation, connect with me at hello@culture-coach.org.
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