I challenge you to a little experiment.
Pick 10 people across your organization and ask them to list or describe your company's values. If it's anything like my experience, 1 out of 10 might be able to rattle them off with no problem. Another 2 or 3 might act like a deer in headlights, looking to the ceiling as if the words that were referenced during the last company meeting were written there to recall. The remaining individuals may just shrug and say they don't know (or worse, that they don't care.)
Hopefully you'll have a different experience and your organization is one of those lucky few that makes an effort to articulate, communicate, and more importantly live, a set of shared corporate values. Unfortunately, research indicates you'd be in the minority. A Gallup survey found that only 41% of U.S. employees strongly agree that they know what their company stands for, and only 27% strongly agree that they believe in their organization's values.
Here's why this is a problem: values are the foundation of a company's brand, culture and customer experience. They are the filter that can, and should, drive employee behavior and influence decision making across the company, from senior leaders to employees and contractors. Without that foundation, employees turn to their own individual value system, and while most people have good values, they are not always aligned with what the company believes is important. This results in wildly different customer and employee experiences, and will eventually take a toll on morale, loyalty and eventually, revenue.
Values in Action
Consider these two examples of values in action - Southwest Airlines vs. United Airlines.
Southwest is very explicit about their values, laying them out in simple terms and reinforcing them across nearly everything they do. They use them to guide how employees should act (with pride, integrity, humility), how teams should treat each other (inclusivity, honesty, service with LUV), and how management should guide the company (efficiency, discipline, excellence).
Compare that with United, which didn't release its first set of shared values until three years ago. Somewhat shocking for a company that was founded more than ninety years ago. United's values aren't bad - we fly right, we fly friendly, we fly together, we fly above and beyond - but they aren't as simple or actionable as Southwest.
If you were an executive in the company making a decision about investments, policies or how to communicate during a crisis situation, which set of values would be more helpful? If you were a recruiter evaluating which candidates would be a good fit for the company, how would you test whether they would "fly right"? Yet, you'd probably easily come up with a set of questions to test their humility and inclusivity. If you were an employee dealing with a tough customer situation, which value is more helpful in shaping that interaction "fly above and beyond" or "service with LUV"?
Words matter, especially when it comes to values.
Values aren't meant to be taglines for an office poster (especially now that more and more people don't go to an actual office). Values are meant to be guidelines for how people should show up every day in what they do and what they say (and more importantly, what they don't do and say.) If everyone inside a company is working from the same shared guidelines from the top down then customers will notice. They'll get that consistent experience, and that is how brands are created and reinforced.
But knowing your values and living your values are two different things. This is where leadership really comes into play. Poor leaders consider values something they have to do, rather than what they want to do. Poor leaders see values as a box to check, while good leaders see values as one of their company's greatest assets. Poor leaders roll them out once a year at the company meeting, while good leaders communicate and reinforce them every day.
If you are in charge of a team, a company or a customer experience, take a minute and reflect on your own company and role. Do you know what your company values are? How do you use them in your day to day role? Do you talk about them? Are they on your website? Are they part of your recruiting and performance evaluation processes? If not, it's time to do something about it.
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