Why it feels like no one cares about company values

Have you noticed the trends in offices interiors that is taking the world by storm? It may even be in your office. Seemingly lots and lots of organisations are taking a retro look at decorating and are wallpapering everywhere with some flimsy sheets of paper that have written on the top 'our values’.

Sadly that is where for so many the values stop. On the wall. And if they do, stop, don’t bother with them.

When I collaborate with organisations looking at their values the work is almost never about defining and refining values because people are often really good at that and they know what they believe in and how they do it. And it is almost never wordsmithing the values to make them more pithy. The vast majority of time is spent agonising over how values actually become part of organisational life and behaviour. Or in other words 'can we live this out and not simply have it as wall paper?'

I hear lots of reasons why people think values fail in their organisations such as 'people don't buy into them' or 'they're not really us' or 'they are confusing' or 'there are too many'. These may be true but often not why I see values fail to work.

In my experience there are the 6 key things we don't think about fully enough with values and this is why values, however well crafted and meaningful, don't trickle down our organisations.

• Leaders aren't brave enough to use them as metrics for success

  
  

Often leaders talk about how important values are, but the reality is it doesn't go anywhere. 'We want you to be "boldly creative" and embrace "permission to fail" yet when it comes to reviews and appraisals we mark people and projects by achieving their KPIs and job description targets. The best leaders observe when values are displayed and use it as a metric for measuring success. If not, however good our rhetoric and meaning behind values, we subconsciously convey that values do not add to the bottom line for how we view our teams.

• Values aren't distinct enough

  
  

Values such as 'commitment to customers' or 'kindness' really annoy me. I can never imagine the reverse working; who would want to intentionally work for an unkind company? Or which company that doesn't commit to its customers is thriving? More than this when our values are not distinct and they simply state obvious things they become too easy to ignore because our people presume they are already doing them. 'I am kind' or 'I have integrity' etc. so they don't actively consider them. But when our values are distinct and not what everyone else is saying they help people keep them in the front of their minds. Replace kindness with ‘We make others smile’ - it is similar but it makes me think more critically about my actions. Values should be things people have to actively consider to make them a reality.

• Values are not accessible

  
  

If people on our teams are unable to articulate and deliver examples of how values could be achieved then they are pointless. If people can’t do the value, don’t list it. They should always be a stretch but they should never be inaccessible due to mystique about what they mean or beyond the realm of people to achieve them. 

• Too easy to compromise on them in times of stress

  
  

None of us act exactly how we want to all the time, but we should be able to uphold our values under stress. If our values break under minimal stress test we should put them in the bin. A classic one would be ‘permission to fail culture’ where it is fine to try our best to innovate and do brilliant things and get things wrong in the process, right up until the leaders say we are not making enough money and we keep wasting time so we then revert to doing only what is tried and tested. Spotify have ‘fail-fikas’ - fika being Swedish for coffee - where they actively celebrate and try to learn from mistakes that people have made when ideas fall flat. 

• Lack of clarity for why values matter

  
  

Simply saying ‘it would be a nice way for people to act’ won’t get people to lean in on our values. It is too simple to pick values that sound nice but mean very little, if it is not clear why it matters people won’t do it in the long run. I worked with Justice Defenders and they cited a value as ‘unlikely allies’ as they worked with prisoners, jailers, police, judges and victims to make the criminal justice space in Kenya and Uganda better. And they were able to clearly articulate that when you brought together every part of the system involved in criminal justice you could effectively uproot the causes of injustice. This meant that when people were hurt, damaged, and struggled with working with people different to them, they could point to why this continued to matter. And they do it.

• Your values are not for everyone 

  
  

It is important that values value what you value! I.e. this isn’t an opportunity to list every virtue and opportunity to act in a good way. Your organisational culture won’t be for everyone and the quicker we come to terms with that the better. What we are striving for is not uniformity but a distinct vision that can deliver what you believe is important and this acts as a sign for whether other people should be allies in the organisation with you or should look elsewhere. Netflix say that ‘candour’ is one of their values about being able to willing give and receive clear feedback, understand and admit mistakes and share these things widely. For some this could be brutal, for others it could be exactly what they long for. With values don’t be afraid to be who you are.

How are your values looking?