All companies have values, even ones new to the market. Some don’t recognize or acknowledge them, especially at the beginning of their foray into entrepreneurship, but values exist.
Others confine them to a values statement that remains on paper. Very few actively uphold them and hold their employees up to their respective standards.
It’s difficult to make values show up in the workplace. To most people, values seem like they’re all talk and no substance. According to Tanya Schecter from the HTI Institute, a leadership training company, firms should create groups of values with one leading value that encapsulates all of the values in the group.
Schecter concedes that many people think values are all “fluff” and don’t get the point of them. They only become a company’s strategic advantage when they are operationalized, e.g., when someone explains what they mean. For example, integrity is a value behind which lies transparency. Your clients must understand you’re not hiding things from them.
How do you operationalize a value? By putting it into words. If someone feels good as an employee when their team does a certain thing, they are living a value. Alternatively, a company can discover a specific value when customers point out how good it is at something. Values become something to aspire to.
When people are misaligned with their values, they feel unwell. With organizations, this can happen to individuals or manifest through reactions from clients. The bottom line results can also be an indicator.
Identifying values at organizations
When an organization is small, it can evolve without conscious thought of values. As it grows, someone ends up saying they “need to start thinking about values.” In this situation, they need input from everyone on the team. Each member needs to share their ideas about what makes the company different from others in the same area. It can be a long or a short process – there is no fixed time frame for this.
How to deal with misalignment
Values don’t exist in and of themselves; they must be claimed. There has to be some overlap between personal and company values for an individual to excel at a given organization. It’s important to seek alignment. Sometimes, it emerges the person just isn’t a good fit, and that’s fine.
The significance of cultural values
In this context, employers need to consider cultural values. Values differ from one country and one culture to another. This is important to keep in mind, particularly for firms with branches abroad and multicultural or multinational teams, because there is considerable overlap between personal and cultural values.
According to an analysis of World Values Survey (WVS) data by Christian Welzel and Ronald Inglehart, two political scientists, cross-cultural variation has two main dimensions: traditional vs. rational values and self-expression vs. survival values. We differentiate between them in the following section.
Traditional values
Traditional values focus on family, parent-child connections, religion, and deference to authority. Societies and cultures that embrace these values reject suicide, euthanasia, divorce, and abortion. They uphold patriotism and demonstrate high levels of national pride.
Rational values
Rational or secular values are diametrically opposed to traditional values. The focus on authority, family values, and religion is limited to none. These societies tend to defy authority and lean toward atheism. Their members are less judgmental when it comes to events like suicide, euthanasia, abortion, and divorce.
Survival values
Cultures that place emphasis on survival values put physical and economic security above everything else. These values are linked to low levels of tolerance and trust and an ethnocentric outlook.
Self-expression values
The last category of values involves giving high priority to environmental protection, tolerance of foreigners and the LGBTQI+ community, and gender equality. People with these values demand to take part in political and economic decision-making.
Thus, we have four combinations, and all cultures fit into one of the following categories:
| Traditional and survival values | Traditional and self-expression values |
| Rational and survival values | Rational and self-expression values |
According to the WVS, some poor countries in Latin America and elsewhere are in the upper right group. This seems to contradict Maslow’s theory that self-expression, which is part of self-actualization, is above security in the pyramid of needs. Maslow’s theory pertained to individual, not cultural values, which could explain this paradox.
Values are a lot of work!
When confronted with the issue of corporate values, many people will say that it’s a lot of work. Typical questions that arise are, “Do we have time,” or “How do we get this done?” It does take time and money, but experts assure you’ll be more successful in the long run. For example, people that embody a company’s values will be easier to train. They will fit in seamlessly, ultimately saving the company money.
The “beer and burger” test
O2Brands, a family of home services brands, has an interesting approach to gauging values: the so-called beer and burger test. They ask their staff if they would have a beer and a burger with a job candidate they’re considering. If they say no, they ask why.
Why do interviewers ask candidates about their strengths and weaknesses? One reason is to see if the specific strength is something the company is looking for. Another is to check if the weakness is too great a hurdle. If you’re a food service company and the person’s biggest weakness is a lack of communication skills and personability, it may be too big of an obstacle to overcome.
Examples of companies living their values
According to Tanya Schecter, companies like Starbucks and Patagonia are successful because they live their values regardless of the cost. They uphold them even when it’s not cost-efficient. The values drive their hiring process.
One of Starbucks’ values is friendliness. They aim to create a culture of warmth and a sense of belonging. This is reflected in the ambience of Starbucks venues and the staff’s behaviour toward customers.
Patagonia values sustainable products, integrity, environmental protection, and equitability. These values are expressed in their product: recyclable, repairable, and long-lasting clothes. The company makes an effort to implement regenerative practices and reduce its impact. It does this by partnering with communities and grassroots organizations to restore water, air, and land to a state of health. It also aims to address the links between social injustice and environmental destruction.
The company tries to create equity for marginalized communities and to shift the focus from short-term growth and profit to sustainability and well-being.
Finally, they value unique approaches. Their models look like ordinary people you’d see on the street. There are many more examples of core values in action.
How do you hold people up to values?
Values should be more than “wallpaper.” Managers could organize “shout outs” when an employee demonstrates a value in action. They could make values part of annual reviews or promotions. They can tell stories around values. Starbucks has a Stories section that lists its mission, values, news, and more.
An employee may insist they uphold a certain value, but demonstrate misaligned behaviour. For example, they say they value teamwork, but they focus on their individual contribution. This is why it’s important to be clear from the start. Values shouldn’t be brought up only when there is an issue. Companies should turn attention to them as often as every week.
Another practical approach would be a meeting where the team focuses on a specific value. The value should be different every week.
Aim for value overlap
Everyone’s personal core values are different. The company also has core values. The different teams need core values. Obviously, there needs to be some value overlap. The issue of conflicting values within teams naturally arises. If a company values integrity, but its sales team wants to win at any cost, a possible compromise could be “winning through the lens of integrity” by putting the customer first.
Back to the beginning: every company has values, and they shine through even if they haven’t been articulated.
Experts warn of the risks of letting things go without saying anything.
Value misalignment: Red flags
Common signs of value misalignment at a company include lack of access to information, frequently missed or moved deadlines, and unproductive meetings.
The employees of a misaligned organization either don’t have access to or don’t know where to find the data and information needed to make decisions and move forward.
When people from different departments are missing or moving more deadlines than they’re meeting, it can be a sign of organizational value misalignment.
It’s happened to most of us: you leave a meeting without being able to say what it was about and why it was called at all. Or, you leave feeling sure you understood the goals, the project, and other relevant details – until another attendee tells you they got a completely different idea.
Risks of value misalignment in an organization
Change is inevitable in any organization, and it can be a source of great stress and tension. Organizations that try to cope with change without a clear set of values or a mission and purpose to guide them can experience turbulence, disruption, and confusion. This will almost always impact the bottom line.
Ineffective hiring and retention practices
When an organization doesn’t know what its members believe or should believe in, its efforts to recruit and retain staff stall.
It’s harder to attract and engage the right employees when you’re lacking values. Your organization doesn’t know who these people are, plain and simple. It’s not clear on how to inspire and retain its talent. When employees are unmotivated and disconnected from their work, engagement suffers. The lack of a clear set of values as behaviour guidance ultimately compromises retention.
A company can become more desirable as a workplace if it’s able to give meaning to employees’ work.
Poor accountability
Employees don’t know what behaviour is expected of them when the organization’s values are misaligned with its mission. A framework to create accountability is lacking. Teams are unable to cooperate to achieve business goals, and leaders can’t work together as one cohesive unit.
Final thoughts
Value alignment improves the speed with which an organization can achieve its purpose or mission. Values tell leaders and their teams how to get where they want to go. They provide a framework through which employees can make decisions on a daily basis.
Companies that struggle with change also find it challenging to meet customer needs. There is a direct relationship between value alignment and customer satisfaction. High levels of customer satisfaction were reported in 96% of high-alignment organizations. Conversely, around a third of low-alignment organizations indicated low customer satisfaction.
Sources
- https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp?CMSID=Findings#:~:text=Survival%20values%20place%20emphasis%20on,levels%20of%20trust%20and%20tolerance.
- https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/media/organizational-values-tanya-schecter/
- https://beehivepr.biz/purpose-mission-and-values-misalignment-risks/
- https://lucid.co/blog/warning-signs-and-risks-of-poor-organizational-alignment
