Corporate culture develops on its own or purposefully by the leadership of the organization. The culture that develops on its own takes its shape and evolves based on the way people interact within the organization. Another strong influence on the shape of the culture is what is seen as tolerated, allowed, rewarded, or recognized. These things become the values of the organization. Maximize your culture by having corporate values as part of your daily conversation.
The Importance of Corporate Values
Corporate values are the guide to acceptable behaviors. They provide everyone with observable, tangible, and measurable expectations on how to interact with one another and with customers. Corporate values provide people with a common objective and means of accomplishing that objective.
The values enable those who are in service delivery and in front of clients act in a way that represents your culture. This increases your ability to retain and grow clients.
Employees who demonstrate alignment with the corporate values tend to do so outside of work as well. This increases the exposure to your organization’s cultural brand making you more attractive as an employer and a partner. An example of this is when companies have volunteer days where all employees get one day a year off to donate time to charity.
Bringing Corporate Values Into the Discussions
- By holding people accountable to behaviors and actions that demonstrate the values. This can be a great tool in conflict resolution because it is hard to argue a position that is against the accepted values and culture of the organization.
- Measure people against the values expectations because they are a guide that ensures cooperation, teamwork, validation, and fun at work. Measure how well they demonstrate and promote the values as much as you measure their job performance.
- Translate the corporate values into “I” statements for each person. This helps everyone understand how the values look, fit, and feel in their current role.
- Live the values in every interaction. Become the model of what the values look like, When someone does or says something that crosses the line of a particular value, call them on it and asks how it relates to said value.
- Rewarding, recognizing, and coaching when applicable are tools for holding everyone accountable for living the values daily. Any solid coaching plan will include elements or language of the corporate values.
Nothing is urgent enough to dismiss the values even when there is a crisis within the organization. Otherwise, your real values are different from the said values. Instead, let your values guide you out of the crisis, you’ll feel better as a result.
As a leader, you are the most important person to hold to the standard, followed by other leaders and top performers. These are the people who have influence around your organization and can accelerate or stall your cultural initiatives.
Employee performance improves, employee retention improves, and you will attract more high-quality talent because a positive culture creates a positive work environment. The culture starts with clearly defining the values and holding people accountable for behaving in line with those values and ultimately the culture.
Last updated on August 8th, 2020 at 06:42 am
