The Times They Are A-Changing:

The Impact of 2020 on Organizational Values and Culture

The 1960s were a significant influence on my life and values. For some, it was a period of excess and turmoil; for me, it was a time of idealism when people questioned the status quo and called for changes to improve society. I appreciated the engagement and the activism, and I still find it hard to resist quoting Bob Dylan, whatever chance I get. 

It’s hard not to see some parallels with today, between the disruption of the pandemic and the protests for racial and social justice following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis - and just like in the 60s, progressivism and civil rights are now in conflict with law and order and conservatism. However, today, the lens is not as absolute and unambiguous as it appeared in the 60s.

The intensity of all the feelings around these issues tells us something very clearly: this is about values. As a result, we can’t solve or resolve our conflicts and find a better way forward without taking values into account. 

For leaders and organizations grappling with so much change, it’s time to take stock. What do we stand for and believe in as an organization? How do we need to act to be an organization with integrity? It’s not about branding or slogans or words of support. It has to be meaningful and actuated – or customers, employees and society will see through the falsehoods.

Despite every other challenge facing organizations this year, values may be the most critical issue for leaders to handle. 

When the Levee Breaks

The sociologist Morris Massey did a lot of important research on how values are developed in people. He talked about the “Imprint Period” until about age seven, when we soak up everything around us, especially how our parents behave. Then, there’s the “Modeling Period” until 13, when we try on values like different sets of clothes to see how they feel to us. And finally, there’s the “Socialization Period” through early adulthood, when we often break with old patterns and adopt new values that feel truer or right. 

It’s no coincidence that the cultural upheaval of the 1960s was led by the Baby Boomers in their teens and 20s. They questioned everything and wanted a new world. Later on, many, of course, reverted to their parents’ values. That’s because the imprinting of values is so strong and deep. 

Morrisey also talks about critical moments when values can change. He calls them “Significant Emotional Events.” These are times that shake us to our core and force us to question and possibly alter the way we’ve been living. 

For many people, organizations, and possibly society itself, 2020 has been a Significant Emotional Event without parallel.

I’ve seen a lot of organizational leadership losing their balance as a result. They’ve adopted new approaches to working that have left their organizations' employees both disconnected and adrift. They’re reacting to customers with strong views and struggling to please “both sides.” They’re often talking one way and acting another.  

For the time being, employees are unlikely to rebel, given the risk of losing employment and livelihood. But down the line, as life becomes more settled and secure, leadership that acted or reacted in ways contrary to their values without clarifying why or what changed will pay an enormous price. Cynicism will be endemic. 

Let me explain why.

Culture is Rooted in Values

No one precisely understands what culture is, but they know it when they see it. The most obvious way it can be observed is in how people act, how they talk, and how they make decisions. Organizations with strong cultures have a distinct feel to them. If you are working in a company that you feel has a strong culture and, for whatever reason, you moved to another organization that does not have what you consider a strong culture, you would feel the difference almost immediately. 

What lies at the heart of those behaviours, perspectives, and ways of talking and decision-making? Values. It is through values that norms are defined, and perspectives of right versus wrong become further solidified. If a leader makes a big decision that will affect the company’s direction, how do people react? If that decision “feels right” according to the values, then people will buy-in, regardless of how radical that decision might be. 

Consistency is critical, and that consistency must be modelled and demonstrated top-down. Leaders can come and go. The leadership team can be wildly diverse in style, background and perspective (a strength today), but the values must be shared or adhered to, or the organization will be confused and set adrift. The values are your code of ethics.

Even as leaders live, speak and breathe those values, employees at all levels must be held accountable to them. No one gets praised, reprimanded, hired, promoted or fired without reference to the values, implicitly or explicitly. Performance is values-based and deeply ingrained.   A high-performing individual can be a toxic cancer if he or she is acting contrary to organizational values. Similarly, a poor performer's firing can be surprisingly upsetting and even damaging to the organization if that person lived, celebrated, and carried its values. 

Similarly, organizational vision and strategy must be aligned with the values. A Wall-Street-pleasing vision or a brilliant market strategy is doomed to failure if they don’t resonate in the organization at the level of values. 

I am not saying that performance and strategy don’t matter, far from it. Both are essential. But strategy gains power from the foundation of values. Here’s the formula:

Values x Vision x Leadership x Execution = Greatness

Everything in that formula can change, except the values.

Moments of Crisis

During moments of crisis, many things can go wrong, as we’ve seen – but there’s no more prominent and more consequential shift than a change in values. 

For example, when the pandemic hit, most organizations went virtual. Moving to remote working was a considerable change to the workflow. Ask yourself, however, did it really change the unique culture and character of your organization? If not, then the organization’s values were not affected. Interestingly, most of the corporate messaging I saw at the beginning of the pandemic emphasized continuity. “We’ve always been there for you.” “We’re continuing to serve you as we always have.” 

In contrast, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests inspired a different reaction. Many organizations suddenly could not ignore or brush away their past actions. Maybe they had products or market strategies that were exclusionary or even racist. Perhaps their leadership or employee ranks were notably lacking in diversity. 

A lot of the messaging I saw in the aftermath was sober, contrite and vowing change. “We’re listening.” “We want to live up to expectations.” “We want to come together to help build a better world.” 

Did this indicate values change? Not really. Many leaders fall into the trap of believing in “Aspirational Values.” The thinking goes like this: We want to live up to our values, but we know that’s a journey, so be patient with us along the way and forgive us for our failings as we strive toward perfection.  Aspirational values are those you aspire to achieve but are not currently living.  Thus, having aspirational values gives one an excuse for not acting accordingly today, as the values remain lofty or future-focused. Of most importance is that your current, authentic values serve as cornerstones for how you act daily. Human nature dictates that people need consistency, which in turn provides predictability. Living your values provides a platform for the consistency and predictability of the action you will take.  

Aspirational values are likely to ring hollow to employees and customers too. The reason is simple: If you’re not living those values, it’s because you don’t honestly believe in them. If you believed in them, then you wouldn’t or couldn’t violate them. And the evidence or proof is not in what you say you believe, but in what you do, how you act. 

It could even be the case that you dedicate yourself to aspirational values that sound nice at the moment, but your employees don’t believe in them. If so, they won’t follow your lead no matter how important that seems. 

For example, several years before the murder of George Floyd, the Minneapolis Police Department acknowledged the need to change its culture, particularly in how it trained new officers, to avoid further incidents of police brutality. This was an aspirational goal. But the force did not adopt a training program called EPIC (Ethical Policing Is Courageous) designed to support such a purpose. According to the program’s website: EPIC “strives to redefine police culture so that intervention to prevent or stop harmful action is not an exception to good teamwork; it is the very definition of good teamwork.” 

Tragically, the officer who killed George Floyd was actually a supervisor training two of the three other officers present on the scene who had less than a week in service time on the street. 

The MPD culture had not changed over the years despite clear calls to do so.

Merely adopting another canned training program won’t “get you there.” True values must be infused in every meeting, every directive, every decision. An organizational structure ultimately just blocks is on a piece of paper, and unfortunately, it’s often the case with values as well.  Unless the values are infused into every vein of the organization, they become nothing but a test at the end of a training program.

Formal diversity-related training in organizations, like any formal training, without integrating the desired behaviour into the organization's process and norms, the training will not achieve the desired behaviour change. In fact, regarding diversity training, there are incidents where it has backfired on the company. The training might successfully heighten an intellectual understanding, yet, at best, the actual behaviour change in the workplace has shown to be minimal. It is too much to expect a short diversity training, especially one online, to have vigorous enduring effects on behaviours. There needs to be a system-wide effort that involves inclusion and respect from the top, including greater visibility of women and minorities at all management levels.

See the article by Edward H. Chang, Katherine L. Milkman, Dena M. Gromet, Robert W. Rebele, Cade Massey, Angela L. Duckworth, and Adam M. Grant PNAS April 16, 2019 116 (16) 7778-7783; first published April 1, 2019; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1816076116

Change and Continuity

I am not arguing that values can’t or shouldn’t change, but I know that changing values in practice is arduous work. Values do evolve, very slowly, over time and because of life’s experiences. Organizations reject (explicitly or passively) changing values when they do not feel right or are not accomplished in a deliberate, comprehensive and determined way. That starts with leadership. Leaders who want to change or reinforce values must do so explicitly. Sometimes, they will even need to “discover” what those values are through a rigorous cultural and behavioural investigation process. 

Values are not about doing what is easy, comfortable, reasonable or trendy. They are challenging, meaningful, significant beliefs that are highly resistant to change. A value is universally applied. People must be won over and even collaboratively involved in their development, discovery or reinforcement to have those values feel real. Values must also accommodate tremendous complexity, change and uncertainty if they are to remain resilient over time. 

If not now, when?

None of this is easy, but it has never been more crucial. We’ve been talking about change for decades, but few of us have seen change like this before. The 1960s were child’s play in comparison. The organization of the future may be very different from the organization of last year. We may just be glimpsing that new reality, not experiencing it fully yet. How will we maintain the cohesion, consistency, clarity and certainty organizations need to thrive in that unknown? 

The only answer values. I sincerely hope that many people are experiencing a sharp dissonance regarding social justice and racism; that these past months have been, in fact, a significant emotional event. Empathy will be responsible for bringing about change. 

In short, values are the differentiating factor for right and wrong, the company code of ethical conduct. What is a value? A value is a strongly held belief, emotionally charged, resistant to change and universally applied.  

My first childhood hero, Jackie Robinson, said it best when he underscored the need for connection over friendship, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”

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About David S Cohen (https://www.sagltd.com)

If you feel it is time for a values check-up or that these times have impacted your belief system, I would be glad to have a discovery discussion and help you articulate your values and corresponding behaviours.  Please, contact David for a free initial review of your company values and culture.

David is an educator, contrarian consultant, keynote speaker, teacher and author. He works with leadership to build stronger teams resulting in getting better results. Over the last 30 plus years, and visiting five continents, David has partnered with various industry sectors researching organizational culture, leadership, and employees' behaviour at all levels of organizations. 

David is a member of the #MG100.

David has conducted extensive research on the difference between employee engagement and employee experience. Recently he posted a presentation on this topic at the 2019 SHRM Talent Conference.  You can download a copy of his white paper on the differences between EX and EE on his website. 

Follow this link to purchase Inside the Box.