The Power and Potential of Living your Family Business Values

There is plenty of research out there attributing the success and resilience of family-owned businesses to their distinctive, values-driven cultures, which shape behaviours in the family and the business and define relationships between family members, customers and employees. Values in business-owning families are often implicit and derived from the family’s history; it is just “the way we do things around here”.

Maybe your family values have long been explicitly outlined, and perhaps even displayed on your company’s website for all to see. But when did you last reflect on what these words actually mean? How can we be sure they are actually implemented in day-to-day behaviours and decision-making? In other words, does your Family Values Statement reflect reality, today?

In this article, we provide some tangible actions you can take to reinforce your secret weapon - your core values - to ensure that they are lived on a daily basis and continue to be meaningful and impactful.

We are very grateful to those family business owners who gave generously of their time to talk to us about what values mean to them and their family businesses.

First things first…

Are your values clearly defined and understood?

You may have gone as far as extracting, identifying and communicating your core family values, but if as a family you don’t agree on what they mean in practice, you are likely not going to agree on how to live them. If you suspect there is a lack of understanding around your core values, it might be time to revisit and revitalise them.

A great place to start can be through storytelling, exploring your family and organisation’s collective narratives. Encourage conversations on the topic, and ask family members and those in the family business for examples of times when your shared core values were embodied, revealing and reinforcing what people care about, and are proud of and inspired by. But ask also for examples of times when your values weren’t lived; what were the consequences? (Perhaps discomfort, anger, guilt, or even the loss of employees and customers?) Focus on actions and behaviours: what do we always do? What do we never do?

In the event that you discover incongruence or confusion in this exercise, you can go a step further and create a dedicated survey or carry out a ‘values workshop’ to reveal and reinforce your family business values, deepen understanding around them, and bring them to life. There are plenty of specific processes and group exercises that can help you with this, and an outside advisor can be a great help in facilitating these discussions. Conversations around behaviour and workplace culture can sometimes be uncomfortable and you may meet with resistance, but you have a great deal to gain in strengthening engagement with your core values, and ensuring they are relevant and ‘real’ for everyone in the organization.

The goal is to extract, clarify and agree on a set of authentic, shared values that are clearly articulated and meaningful. Vague values are meaningless, because they fail to drive and inspire behaviour. Making your values explicit, and focusing on the language you use to provide guidance, means they can be easily communicated, shared, promoted and - most importantly - translated into action.

When you find that you are living your values just as you intended, celebrate! This is the stuff great businesses are made of and celebrating the good reenergises and reinforces positive behaviours.

How do you ensure that your core values are truly “lived”?

While business leaders acknowledge the importance of values in the workplace, when it comes to setting aside time and space to talk about and actively reinforce them, they tend to be less forthcoming. Most leaders are starved of time, and on a daily basis face many competing priorities and demands. We can quickly default to what is easiest or quickest to do when things get really busy or we are facing challenges. However, a leader’s role is crucial in “walking the talk’, and setting the tone for behaviours in the organization.

We are not talking about a branding exercise; culture cannot be shaped without a conscious focus on the system as a whole. Here we’ve picked out some tangible ways to reinforce and keep your core family business values alive in your organization:

·???????Talk about your core values regularly, with a focus on living them from the top down. Do they guide important business decisions? Are they on your Board and/or Family Council agenda?

·???????Use your values in the language you use, when managing and coaching people, and in your internal and external messaging.

·???????Make your core values visible. Consider creating a visual representation of your family values statement to make it easily shareable, particularly with younger members of the next generation (perhaps think about being playful and creative, especially with the youngest family members). Include them in a refresher training course for employees.

·???????Recognise and reward actions and individuals in the organization who embody your core values. Highlight and celebrate these stories, perhaps by way of a peer-to-peer recognition program.

·???????Weave your core values across all facets of the business, and into workplace processes. For example, look at whether you recruit, reward and promote based on your values.

·???????Be proactive about instilling your family values in the next generation from an early age. Set an example with your actions and behaviours, and educate the next generation about what your core values mean and why they are important. Internships, shadowing and philanthropy programs can be a great way to do this. This way your next generation will not only see that the company lives up to its values statement, they will see you embodying the values too.

·???????Create your own routines and rituals that help the entire family live and celebrate the family values. For example, we were inspired by a family who had chosen a significant date to annually recognise achievements by family members that were aligned with one of their core values. This way, they not only celebrate their core values, but also integrate them into their legacy building.

Family values are often what differentiates a family business; as the foundation of its unique culture, they are at the heart of what brought it success in the first place. It is therefore important to reinforce your core values and consciously pass them on to succeeding generations, to ensure that the family remains committed to carrying on as owners, and that the business’ strong foundation and long-term competitive advantage endures. We recall a family business who discontinued a very successful product line when they realised it compromised one of their values. It is perhaps one of the reasons why they have survived nearly 250 years in business.

Is it time to revisit and revive your core family business values?

A family member from a successful family-owned business describes how wisdom and values from previous generations of his family are kept alive in their memorable sayings and stories, which are still used by family members and employees in the business today. “My father and uncles may not be here to tell me what to do in a challenging situation”, he explains, “but their spirit lives on in our language, and in this way their values continue to guide me.” However, while his experience of these great founding entrepreneurs is first-hand, will the famous sayings hold the same meaning for the next generation? How can we bring our family values to life for successive generations?

?Whilst the values may be a part of a family’s history, and inculcated in family members from a very early age, we must also acknowledge that they must sit alongside each individual’s personal value set. One business family we spoke to encourages individual family members to identify their personal values in dedicated workshops, simultaneously helping them explore their relationship with the shared family values. This creates a stronger sense of shared ownership around the family values, and ensures that no one feels that their personal values are being compromised or discounted.

It is important that current and succeeding generations have the flexibility to refresh or reinterpret the family values, taking ownership of them in their own way, so that they remain relevant with the changing times, the changing business, and with each new generation.

It is through our daily actions that our values are given meaning, and are passed on. We encourage you to be intentional about reinforcing and fostering your core values. They are the glue that keeps a family and business together, providing a sense of identity, commitment, pride and meaningful ownership. As Carl Jung put it: “you are what you do, not what you say you do.

Having independent facilitators put together these workshops and retreats is well worth it. An outside perspective on something so close to us as our family values is the first benefit, but the most important is ensuring that someone keeps the dialogue on track and makes sure everyone is given a fair chance to speak.

This article is co-written by Phoebe Clark and Elizabeth Bagger .

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