Values aren’t always valuable
Rupert Evill
Reducing Integrity & Sustainability Risks for Investors, Mid-Caps & SMEs | Risk Assessments, Implementation, Training, Incident Response | Author "Bootstrapping Ethics" | Advisor @Association of Corporate Investigators
In the last newsletter, I discussed my issues with decision-making models that include “Is it legal?” as a step - just because you think you can doesn’t mean you should. Now it’s another stalwart of ethical decision frameworks: “Is it in line with our values?”.
Which values? The ones on the website or those people observe?
Have you ever had a creepy supervisor/manager say, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”, before laying out how they would do most things? No? Lucky you. I’ve had a couple, including one gent who spent his days sitting in a walk-in refrigerator reading soft-core pornography. Surprisingly, he’s not become a politician yet.
I have no idea what the values were for those organisations, as I was focused on escaping. LinkedIn is the business class lounge of the working world. We gripe about the slightly curled sandwiches and lack of ice before boarding and eating first, imbibing most, and reclining a bit bloated and wondering why sleep is so elusive. There aren’t many farm labourers, factory workers, or BPO temps posting about life in the back of the bus. If you’re asking people to consider your values, be mindful that their immediate team and managers dictate the experienced reality of corporate values for many employees. Board-level aspirational statements might be very distant.
I like the idea of honest values, but it is helpful to explain how they fall over when they’re performative, poorly defined, contradictory, and theoretical (not measured). Perhaps if we understand how not to do it, it will become easier to create decision-making systems where values mean something.
Performative values
The corporate values bingo below is an aggregation of the most recurring amongst the bid corporations; Fortune 500 and alike (original post here: https://bit.ly/3PnjGMd). I like to call this Purpass?.
When you distil aspirational words, you might argue that this homogeneity was always likely. How many different ways can you express a value or invention, or creativity? It’s a fair point. But what makes most people raise a smirk ???is not the words but how hollow they sound when contrasted with contradictory actions.
I also posted about that (https://bit.ly/3N7JslI; image above), contrasting value statements against headlines of repeated corporate misdeeds. To understand the dissonance, we must consider where these words come from. Are they voted for by the employee (or heaven-forbid broader stakeholder) population? Not typically, although I know Nick Gallo at Compliance Line and others have done this successfully. Most values are a blend of:
You may point to exceptions, where charismatic leaders (often in pioneering and, therefore, immature sectors) define a vision that underlings follow religiously. Fair enough, but wait until crises and redundancies come; that’s a test of values. For most organisations, using stale, disjointed, or performative value words and then asking people to use those constructs to make sound ethical decisions is foolhardy.
CTA (call to action): check if your value words reflect risk and operational realities. If not, crowdsource more honest and constructive ones.
Values without definition
The words above, without further explanation, can be dangerous. Let’s use a few hypothetical to make the point:
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I have learned - the hard way - especially with my daughter, that pithy messages with established constructs and intentions (locked in my head) travel poorly as instructions. Talking of my daughter, we did our family Code a while back (one extract below). The lines under each word provided the framework to hold each other accountable.
CTA: Bring words to life with clear instructions and some examples.
Values are not created equal
If you have five values, are they all equal? Come on, be honest! We can all see anyway. Companies who list inclusion, diversity, and fairness, but none of that is reflected in senior leadership roles, aren’t fooling anyone. What do “learning” and “innovation” mean if learning and innovation are not supported by training and professional development frameworks? Don’t get me started on “fun” and “honesty”. If you have a culture where views are expressed freely and openly, that’s not always a good thing. In some cultures, there is a subtlety to filtering thoughts up and down organisations not to shame or embarrass people; we don’t all enjoy confrontation. Additionally, just because you have your truth doesn’t mean everyone else has to respect it.
Again, spelling out how the values are lived and demonstrated will help. But so will being honest about your cornerstone ethical value(s). Usually, it’s one word; which one? If you’re using these values to make decision-making frameworks, maybe pull out the word that works best in that context.
CTA: Not all values help make ethical decisions; bring out the one (maximum two) that might help and spell out the intended expression of that value(s).
Values without consequences or rewards
They become even more ethereal and superfluous if your values don’t link to KPIs and disciplinary measures. I know a lot of firms have values keyed into HR management systems, but the metrics of measurement are pretty rubbish (aren’t they?). Employees need to know that (not) living the values has tangible consequences.
Having a manager judge whether Derek from Finance acted with integrity this year is unlikely to push the needle. There is hope if your values are defined and reflective of organisational realities. But if we are not measured by a cross-section of our stakeholders, the results will be skewed (best case) or performative (scored high by managers scared of conflict).
If that sounds like a lot of work, not really. You can create a survey with simple stars voting systems (?? to ??????????) that take a maximum of 2mins to complete and randomly assign them to five people at different levels within the team (and other proximate groups).
CTA: Living values must have benefits and downsides if they’re to matter to many employees.
Valuable values
I started saying I am not anti-values, and you may be querying that assertion! I think values are a fantastic bedrock for organisational (and therefore ethical) culture - they need to be realistic, honest, measurable, and clearly defined though.
Getting values right will help with ethical decision-making frameworks. But getting them wrong will confuse (best case), piss people off (worst case), or just be ignored (most likely).
Terrific article Rupert! Great values resonate with everyone across the organization- unfortunately many businesses don’t recognize the need for that. Many times employees can’t even cite one of their company’s values. I was lucky enough to be part of an organization that rebranded their values and kept it simple - I would even go as far as to say that they were fully aligned with my personal values - “Do right/Be real, Dare to Disrupt, Seek the power of different and Own it Like A Founder”. They were solid enough to be aspirational and attainable while sticky enough to make them memorable - they were a great frame up for ethical decision making.
Corporate Ethics, Compliance and Financial Crime Expert.
2 年Rupert Evill, you have once again demonstrated your gift of framing a complex topic into a thought provoking and practical narrative. How many of us have read the core values statements of organisations and dismissed them as hollow or simple window dressing. These values mean nothing for employees, customers or stakeholders if they are not backed up by concrete and consistent actions based on those values. Unless the culture and behaviour along with the processes, policies and comensation/rewards are aligned with those values, then value statements are just empty words that can help you keep score on the corporate values bingo. An organisation needs to promote and nurture ethical intelligence and ethical competency to truly understand the benefits of living and operationalizing values with all stakeholders. Borrowing from Mary Gentile ''Giving voice to Values'' research and approach, values-driven leadership is using values as a Call To Action and providing the framework, environment, culture and incentives to continuily strive to do the right thing, even when nobody is watching. It s also about training and guiding people on how to do this while facing business and performance pressures. Keep these articles coming Rupert??
Lawyer | Multi-Award Winning Investor | DE&I Advocate | Non-Executive Director | RSA Fellow
2 年Insightful and thought provoking as usual Rupert Evill
Organizational Effectiveness, Risk & Resilience | Institutional Integrity | Complexity, System Thinking & Change
2 年Great post again, Rupert. I see very few companies (with some notable exceptions) where the publicly stated "values" of the organisation are in any way reflective of daily realities and behaviour at operational levels (or a driver of them). There is usually a substantial disconnect. You have made some great points. I would add that what is almost always lacking when companies try and set "core values" is analysis of pre-existing behavioural drivers and impacts: Employees aren't some empty vessels existing in a vacuum. They are affected and formed by their societal beliefs and - as you point out - pressures from key management / other influential personnel within their organisations. These need to be analysed, targeted and - if necessary - dismantled first and then rebuilt (at least in terms of workplace behaviour) before companies can start talking about their values at an organisation-wide level.
Security and political risk analyst
2 年My wife works at a startup in the growth stage. We’ve just been on holiday, but because she’s from a certain Southern Hemisphere country that is very far away and has had its borders closed for two years, she wanted to save a couple of days to help with a trip there at the end of the year. So she worked a couple of days while we were away. No problem. They asked her to work on writing their company values. They had ten back-of-a-fag-packet ideas and wanted them fleshed out. They weren’t their values - just what they thought their values *ought* to be given everything they’ve heard at previous employers. Of course, the values were predictable bingo fodder - ‘we take ownership’ (until our manager stops us because he takes ownership too, then marks us down for not taking ownership in our appraisal). It could be worse, and at least they’re trying. But it gave me an impression of a company that is so concerned with being seen to do the right thing it doesn’t stop to wonder if it actually is the right thing. If you’re a year or two old in an immature sector, you may have no idea what your values are yet. That doesn’t mean you need to copy others.