Organisations that build strong value driven cultures frequently achieve continuous high performance. To what extent is your decision making recognisably based on your organisational core values?

Core values provide a cultural norm, that informs the essence of a value driven organisation, connecting the individual to the corporate soul. Successful organisations have an implicit strength in taking advantage of the goodwill that cultural values engender. Learning to tap the improvement potential by making core values work for your company contributes significantly to the sustainable long tail.

Building a Vision-Guided, Values-Driven Organization

Richard Barrett is the Managing Partner of Richard Barrett and Associates and creator of the Corporate Transformation Tools®. He has written a powerful article on values driven companies.

Barrett believes that organizational values are more important today than at any other time in history because the personal and societal context within which business operates is changing. Who you are as an organization, and what you stand for, is just as important as what you sell. The values that an organization lives by are important to a variety of stakeholders:

Societal: Organizational values need to meet society’s expectations with regard to environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Failure to support society’s values can have a very significant impact on financial performance.

Shareholders: Organizational values need to meet the needs of the new breed of shareholders that are only investing in companies that: (a) meet socially responsible investment criteria; and (b) compete to be the best companies to work for, or other quality awards.

Potential employees: To attract the best people, the organizational values need to meet the needs of potential new employees who are choosing to work in organizational cultures that align with their personal values.

Existing employees: To retain the best people, the organizational values also need to meet the needs of existing employees and support them in finding personal fulfillment at work.

The need for an organization to create harmonious interpersonal relationships and good communications. Without good relationships with employees, customers and suppliers, company survival is compromised.

However, when companies become too entrenched at this level of consciousness they place importance on relationships not for what they can give, but for what they can take. What they put into a relationship is purely based on what they think they will get back. Companies at this level tend to be strong on tradition and image, and weak on flexibility and entrepreneurship. Rules are important because there is little trust. They demand discipline and obedience from their employees. Family businesses tend to operate from relationship consciousness. This limits their ability to become successful because they are unable to trust outsiders in management positions.

Almost all organizations have to define their core values. Employees who enfranchise the core values to a greater extent tend to be key performers. Understanding how core values encourages alignment with the mission and vision of the organisation is a valuable study every company should undertake. Key performers often Inspire others to raise the bar. How do you perceive that your employees live your organisation values?

The first ‘The Relationship Management Institute’ award goes to Zappos for embracing social media to create an open, transparent and collaborative company with blogs, tv and great UI. The website is a testimony to all that can be accomplished with dynamic and interactive media for both customers and staff alike. Zappos is an extraordinary success with a mantra “Build open and honest relationships with communication.”  A winning formula because more than 60% of their customers are returning shoppers. Zappos.com made FORTUNE MAGAZINE’s “100 Best Companies To Work For” list for 2009. FORTUNE puts out this high profile list every year, in at #23 this year, making them the highest ranking newcomer for 2009.

Zappo’s CEO, Tony Hsieh writes on the company blog that ‘building a brand today is very different from building a brand 50 years ago. It used to be that a few people got together in a room, decided what the brand positioning was going to be, and then spent a lot of money buying advertising telling people what their brand was. And if you were able to spend enough money, then you were able to build your brand.’

Tony understand that it’s a very different world today, with the Internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. Whether an unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee, any story can spread like wildfire by email and tools like Twitter.

Zappos have 10 core values that act as a formalized definition of their company culture. The core values weren’t formed by a few people from senior management that sat around in a room at a company offsite. Instead, they invited every employee at Zappos to participate in the process, and here’s the final list we collectively came up with:

1) Deliver WOW Through Service
2) Embrace and Drive Change
3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5) Pursue Growth and Learning
6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
Do More With Less
9) Be Passionate and Determined
10) Be Humble

Tony declares:’The cool thing about the Zappos core values is that I’ve used them as my own personal values as well. So it makes tweeting really easy for me… Whether I tweet about something personal or something related to Zappos, if I’m living my life through these 10 core values, it all goes towardsbuilding the Zappos brand while shaping me personally as well.’

Employee First, Customer Second (EFCS) is a radical new philosophy of HCL Technologies.
Through this philosophy the aim was to create a unique employee organization, drive an inverted organizational structure, create transparency and accountability within the organization, and encourage a value driven culture. I think this presentation is a similar ethos and lays out how HCL technologies also espouse the same cultural code to positive effect:

Promoting an ethical culture is a key leadership responsibility.  Equity, transparency, honor, integrity, commitment, and stewardship are standards for excellence in democratic local governance as much in a corporate setting. Every organisation and community deserves an organizational culture based on ethical values and behavior. To accomplish this requires a top down and bottom up approach. Managers need to understand the company culture, paying particular attention to incentivising positive behaviors that support ethical conduct, as well as facilitating employees’ decision-making processes to diminish unethical violations.

Company leaders can deliver continuous education and virtual training to address both and minimise costly interventions and mediations. RNIA CBOK is designed to enable staff in keeping promises and commitments within a set of simple values. The education  training activity focuses on:

accountability for decisions and actions

the value of honest feedback

consistent and appropriate behaviour in a collaborative spirit

The value of setting a good example is communicated across the culture and the consequences of inconsistent delivery reflected in peer feedback. Adhering to ethics allows for all viewpoints to be heard respectfully, transparent decision-making and emphasizes the benefits of open and honest communication.How can we trust restored and what efforts in building relationships to ensure a culture of values is instilled and installed?

Can you really imagine a scenario where you are supported to be a ‘whistleblower’ by staying true to your core values? ICMA TV promotes ethical conduct through its Code of Ethics training for local governments, as well as publications on ethics issues, technical assistance, and advice to members. Given the state of politics, the more proactive ICMA is, the better things can become and begin to reclaim the trust of the people. But how can you affect the same in your enterprise?