Values seem to be almost a buzzword lately. I hear all the time about how important culture is, and how organizations need to have values. What I hear less, though, is how to make values a part of the culture (or rather the culture).

In this blog, I talked about EOS Worldwide and how they advocate hiring, firing, rewarding, promoting and recognizing based on values.

But maybe we need to take a step back and ask how we get there.

Choosing 3-5 values can feel like the easy part for some organizations. They look through their list of possible values and narrow it down, choose a few, make a company announcement and maybe hang a few posters around the office.

Values are not just a poster on a wall, or a page in the employee handbook.

In his book, Built to Last, Jim Collins writes about how enduring companies have a clearly identified Core Ideology which includes both Core Purpose and Core Values. Collins defines core values as:

Collins further explains that visionary companies tend to have only a few core values (3-6). None of the enduring companies he studied had more than 6 and most had less (p. 74). He describes how values are internal facing and must not change based on market trends or environment. He called them, “timeless guiding principles that require no external justification.” (p. 222). Many of the successful companies he studied had the same core values for decades.

He advises that, “after you’ve drafted a preliminary list of the core values, ask about each one: ‘If the circumstances changed and penalized us for holding this core value, would we still keep it?’” (pp. 222-3).

Given that your core values should stay consistent over long periods of time, it is essential to not only pick the right values, but also ingrain them properly into your culture. You need to make sure you do it right.

A values-based culture needs to be actively reinforced on a daily basis through decisions, activities and interactions.

Brené Brown writes

Our younger generations want to connect to a bigger purpose and being a part of something special is critical to them. It is critical that they can align with the organization’s Core Ideology, and that they feel the organization is committed to living it.

Making values real happens through three stages: Determine, Communicate and Live

Determine

You need to choose your values … Often organizations will painstakingly narrow their values down to 5 (I’ve actually seen as many as 7), however, I’d like to challenge you to narrow them down to 2-3. You want to be extremely clear and want them to guide the organization and as you add more values, it can be more challenging for people to remember them all. Ensure you’ve chosen enduring values; ones you would not change even if market conditions or your strategy change.

Often times, values are stated as nouns (things): Integrity, Passion or Resect. Things don’t tell us how to act though, so I think it’s better to work them into action (as a verb), so it might be Act with Integrity, Live Passionately or Respect Others.

Then you need to define the behaviours that you expect for that value (I talk more about that in this blog post)

Sometimes, we get stuck trying to choose between values like respect or integrity. When we get into defining them, we might realize that respect is an element of integrity.

Once you’ve created this document, determine where it will be kept so it is easily referenced by anyone in the organization.

Communicate

Determining your values is not enough; you need to share with employees and volunteers. This area is a challenge for many organizations. They feel like they are a broken record and like if they say it once, everyone should know and remember.

Some people need to hear information seven times before it sinks in, so repetition is important. Try to have multiple people share the same message; it is not something just the CEO owns.

Your leaders need to be extremely clear on what each value means and how it is defined. They need to be prepared to share examples and non-examples.

Create videos and incorporate them into your employee onboarding process so new hires are clear on the organization’s values too. Create training for existing employees. Talk about them in all staff meetings, and ask your leaders to share the message through their departments.

Live

Live your values is a great catch phrase, and putting it into practice can be the longest phase. But how do you do that?

You start with determining how you use values to hire, fire, reward, promote, recognize (see this blog post).

Incorporating examples of people demonstrating the values into daily conversations is where the reinforcement element of Live comes into play. Some ideas for how to do that include:

• Use a specific value when praising others

• When investigating why something didn’t go well, ask if you failed to live your values.

• Have employees share examples of how they or others have lived values

• Evaluate fit to the organization based on fit to values

• Find (or create) an employee recognition program that allows you to link behaviour to values (one example is with one organization who had an employee of the month and nominations needed to describe how that employee lived the values).

• Evaluate employees fit based on values (EOS gives a great framework for this)

Next Steps

Does this seem a bit overwhelming? No problem! I have resources for you.

• Sign up for my Free Leadership Toolbox which has resources specific to values!

• Read these related blogs

• Do you Know Your Values?

• Values in the Workplace: How to Create a Values-Based Organization