EdTech industry enthusiast | Cofounder and CMO/CPO at CodeGym.cc, a platform for learning Java.
We live in a strange world; it’s material, but the most important things are increasingly digital and impalpable. Soft skills are becoming more precious than hard skills, and intangible assets are gaining more value than physical ones.
As a part of this transformation, today, people genuinely come first, and it’s your values—how you build and manage a team—that will define your business’s success or failure.
The Practical Power Of Values
While values are intangible, they are also quite a practical thing. They describe the principles on which employees base their behavior. Therefore, when the situation isn’t clear, people will use their moral compass in order to figure out what to do. For example, if one of your core values is teamwork, people will turn to their colleagues in times of crisis instead of trying to manage by themselves.
Values have many essential functions. First, they help us decide who we are (and who we aren’t). Thus, we can identify people like us and make better hiring decisions. Second, they play an important role in employees’ engagement and motivation. If you know what your company stands for, your work seems (and is) more fulfilling. Third, a business with clear values becomes stronger. Such a company knows its strengths and capitalizes on them.
Okay, you might say, it sounds wonderful, but is there any proof? There sure is. LinkedIn’s research discovered that 71% of professionals were willing to earn less to work for a company with a shared mission and values. According to other research, there’s a positive correlation between organizational values and employee engagement. Finally, a Gallup study shows that employees’ engagement directly affects a company’s profitability, and the most engaged teams outperform the less involved by 22% in profitability and 21% in productivity.
In other words, we need to get our values straight if we want to be more productive and successful.
What Are Your Values?
Values are there even if we don’t talk about them. Most often, they come from a founder. After all, it’s ultimately their decision whom to hire, promote and fire (especially at the beginning of a company’s existence). But you can’t benefit from values that aren’t clearly stated and communicated. And for sure, in this case, it’s harder to replicate desirable behaviors and eliminate what’s unwanted.
That’s why I recommend you create a formal list of values if you don’t have one yet. How many values does a typical organization declare? According to MIT Sloan’s research, 18% of American companies don’t have official lists of values, 22% have five values and 73% have between three and seven values. So, there’s no need to create a long list. Instead, I recommend that you focus on the most crucial factors.
By the way, this study also discovered that the most popular values were integrity (declared by 65% of companies), collaboration (53%), customer focus (48%) and respect (35%). But here’s the problem: Researchers couldn’t find a strong positive correlation between official and actual (how employees perceive the company’s behavior) values. For some of the values (collaboration, customer orientation, execution and diversity), the correlation was even negative.
Creating Practical And Effective Values
This doesn’t mean identifying values is a waste of time, but the research emphasizes the importance of making your values practical. To achieve this, you can:
• Include people in the process of establishing corporate values. I recommend that you don’t give them a list but initiate a discussion. Conduct several meetings, ask for their feedback and survey for examples of the most outstanding performances they’ve seen from their colleagues.
• Show people a clear connection between values and behavior. Give them examples of what you expect from them. For instance, what do you mean when you say “creativity”? Trying to find a solution before coming to a superior with a problem? Having the power to decide and act on an issue instead of reporting it?
• Embed values into the company’s processes. For example, this could be in your hiring, onboarding, promoting, etc.
What To Do (And Not To Do) About Values?
I am confident in the efficiency of my company’s values because we don’t feel the need to exert control or pressure on our employees. Your employee’s motivation should come from within because you all share the same set of values. Here are some recommendations when it comes to implementing your company’s values:
• Don’t expect employees to read your mind. If your values aren’t written and communicated, people won’t know they exist. You are mistaken if you think it’s enough to demonstrate your values. People believe in systems. I’ve found that several episodes of you behaving in a certain way aren’t necessarily enough for them to grasp your values. So, write your company’s values down; make them sharp and easy to remember.
• At the same time, it’s not enough to make a bunch of beautiful statements. Don’t just put your values on the company’s website—live according to them. Every employee’s behavior should be aligned with values. For example, if your company declares autonomy as one of its core values, you shouldn’t micromanage your people.
• Don’t lie. Values should reflect what you believe in, not what you want to believe (or what you want others to think you believe in).
• Don’t compromise. If you state your value is integrity but are willing to take a shortcut to get a quick profit, you’re fooling yourself. Look at your list of values and ask yourself: Can I sacrifice any of them under some conditions? This stress test helps you understand what really matters to you.
• Praise your employees when they act according to the company’s values. Make these examples visible to colleagues through message chains, internal newsletters, meetings, etc.
All these steps can help make your values a part of employees’ everyday life. And eventually, acting according to them will become as natural for people as breathing.
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