Question Your Company Values

This article debates how to approach corporate culture and values from a new angle.

Ever walked into an office which has posters or vinyls talking about company values? What about other slogans? Slogans and words, that tell employees how they should think and behave? Ever felt they were empty words? Ever thought how you couldn’t care less about them?

Company culture is a bugger. You want to create something common among all employees, yet make them unique to your company. You run your workshops to define the company values, manifestos, missions statements and visions. Then you repeat them in all communication channels: intranet, office posters, laptop screen savers... everywhere. Yet, most employees don’t buy them. More importantly, few people change their behavior.

What is the human trait that makes us truly think? Something that stops us? Makes us stare? Makes us learn and change?

Let’s take a step back to our early years. The time we learned to walk and talk. One only needs to observe young children to find the answer. Visualize a baby on the floor, dragging herself towards any object within reach. They grab it, shake it, bang it on the floor, taste it. Why do they do that?

Curiosity is a powerful tool. It makes us try new things, put things to the test. Evolve.

Curiosity makes better employees. It is the path for continuous learning, thinking and behaving differently. Every day. Being curious is being smart. But it’s not just a mindset. It’s the fundamental ingredient to evolve.

Companies need to fight against inertia. Renewal is essential. This is why company culture is so critical. It needs to push us all forward. It encourages us to think and act differently. Yet, most company manifests fail, by being patronizing words on a meeting room wall.

If we agree on the power of curiosity, then why not to apply it to culture as well. Why wouldn’t we ask people to think. Why wouldn’t we ask them questions?

Could your company culture be built around questions altogether?

We have gone on the journey of questions in Amadeus. We started to take down the keywords and slogans and started asking questions. Every decision employees make, big or small, can be analyzed by using the questions. They are questions about customers, risk, accountability, speed and benefits. They cover all the same topics than typical value manifestos.

But they are different. They empower us to think. They allow us to come up with different solutions for different situations. It makes every one of us think and approach things from different perspective. These views open new opportunities to do things differently. To do them better.

Did you ever question your company culture? What I mean is have you ever changed the culture into questions? Why not to try? It may be amazing. Stay curious!

The author works with his team to deliver new ways to drive employee engagement and collaboration inside of Amadeus.