The Values That Drive Organizational Culture

What Do YOU Really Value?

SInce we’ve established the importance of organizational culture and we’ve developed a foundation for what that culture needs to be built on, it’s time we get serious about defining the specific values we stand for - the ones we want to be known for upholding, personally and professionally!

The first time Cindy and I spoke with Jeff Henderson, he challenged us to answer these three questions:

1. What do you want to be known for?
2. What are you known for?
3. Do those answers match?

When we get right down to it, answering that third question with an honest yes requires us to be very intentional about choosing the right values as the foundation for our organizational culture! And that’s where the work BEGINS… But any work we do to enhance what we’re known for will have limited results unless we’ve taken the necessary steps to nail down what we really value (what we want to be known for)!

In my opinion, there are some values that should be held by every individual AND organization. That said, the reasons any one person or company gives for maintaining a value can be incredibly different. We’ll look at what we need to consider for WHY we’ve chosen our values shortly. Before that though, let’s just make sure we know WHAT those things are we value most!

For me as an individual, the values that mean the most to me are honesty, work ethic, and exceeding expectations. As a very Task-Focused person who tends to push for measurable results in everything I do, each of those ties directly to very specific behaviors. That said, my goal is always based on serving others in the process. Whether it’s with friends and family or someone who’s a part of our team, honesty has to be in place to have an effective relationship that lasts long term. I’ve never felt like I had all that much talent for doing any one thing but a strong work ethic has been a big part of any success I’ve been able to achieve. Organizations with average products and services often outperform competitors with superior offerings by simply outworking them! Exceeding expectations, for me, is a matter of under-promising and over-delivering! That’s not a matter of selling ourselves short, it’s just making sure there’s more do than talk…

Coming to terms with the things we really value the most is a strong starting point, but it’s even more important to know exactly WHY we hold those values near and dear so we can keep that top of mind - for ourselves and our teams!

WHY Do You Value What You Value?

Once we’re confident that we have a solid list of the things we really value, we need to be very intentional about defining the reason each of those values matter to us - or anyone else for that matter! The values our organizations perform to will indeed become the organizational culture we’re known for so it’s critical that we take the reins in defining what those values are…

Jon Gordon, author of a great book a friend shared with me a while back called The Carpenter, explained it this way:

Culture is dynamic, not static. Every person on your team and organization creates your culture every day by what they think, say, and do. You elevate it by what you say. And you make it great by what you do.

If Gordon is right, and I believe he’s spot-on, we’d better be absolutely certain we know exactly WHY each value we want built into our organizational culture truly matters to us, our company as a whole, and to each individual we message the importance of that value to! I’ve rarely seen anyone invest an intense amount of energy into doing something just because the boss said so. And the ones who do won’t likely do it very very long unless they’ve landed on their own specific WHY… To that end, I’ve seen even less people go all in just because it’s printed as one of the values in the handbook or on the lobby wall…

WHY matters to all of us!

With that in mind, let’s look at the three values I just listed that I work to live out personally in everything I do; honesty, work ethic, and exceeding expectations. These certainly aren’t all the values that Cindy and I hold dear, but I think they’ll serve as a decent example so you can begin to consider whether or not you’re as clear on WHY your values matter to you…

Most of us are familiar with the saying, “we do business with the people we know, like, and trust.” While I believe that’s a truth, I don’t believe it’s the truth - at least not for all of us! As I’ve studied The Model of Human Behavior, I’ve come to understand that those of us who are more task-oriented have a fairly deep desire to be able to trust someone before we even consider whether or not we like them. I try to be open-minded when I first interact with someone but I also pay very close attention to make sure their words and deeds line up. If they prove to me that they’re not interested in aligning their words and deeds, I tend to be very cautious in any dealings I have with that person moving forward - if I have to deal with them at all… That being the case, I make it a point to do everything I possibly can to avoid even giving the perception of dishonesty. Quite frankly, that’s been the basis for decisions that have likely cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in just the last decade. So be it! Money comes and goes, trust is far more difficult to earn!

Work ethic should be self-explanatory, but society today has shown that it’s absolutely not… As I shared before, I’ve never felt like I was overly talented in any given area. But I learned in my early teens that I could pass a lot of people who possess more talent in any given area by simply outworking them! And truth be told, I also believe a strong work ethic ties right back to honesty, and being willing to work hard to deliver sure does help us follow through on what we commit to.

Exceeding expectations, to me, falls right in line with work ethic. When we’re willing to outwork the competition, we’re off to a good start. Then it’s just a matter of keeping our ego in check. I don’t know when I first heard the expression, “under promise and over deliver,” but it’s been something that I’ve tried to do for as long as I can remember. I also remember John Maxwell estimating that 80% of the people we interact with fall short of what’s expected of them, about 15% perform only to what’s expected of them, but only 5% are willing to go beyond what’s expected of them. I don’t know that he ever cited any real studies to back that. If anything, he may have been a bit high the percentage of folks who exceed expectations. For me, that’s just one way I can do better than someone who’s more talented and it’s something that’s completely within my control.

Hopefully that gives you a glimpse of WHY each of those values are important to me; WHY I’m willing to put so much time, energy, and focus into them. Just in case you need more though, consider how the impact we can each make on the people we serve when we’re willing to give everything we’ve got to living out values like that in everything we do!?

If that’s still not enough reason to get serious about defining the values you build your organizational culture on, consider how it ties back to your bottom line!

The Tangible Value of What We Value

Since you’ve accepted the responsibility of leading your team, I’m going to assume you’re taking what we’ve dug into up to this point to heart by identifying what you really value and defining exactly why those things are meaningful to you - so don’t prove my faith in you wrong here! With that work already in place, let’s put a nice bow on this whole idea of creating a strong organizational culture, and specifically the values it’s built on, by making sure we have a clear understanding of the tangible value of our chosen values…

I share this point a lot, but I’ll do it again here: as leaders, we absolutely must be sure we’re driving return on investment with everything we do throughout the organizations we’re a part of! In far too many cases though, business owners and executives see doing that as cracking the proverbial whip so their minions are working as hard as they possibly can without coming up for air - and there’s no time for that touchy-feely stuff… In my experience, this hasn’t (usually) been because they were plain mean, they just weren’t able to quantify the impact that so-called touchy-feely stuff actually made!?

Companies frequently invest tens of thousands of dollars to implement processes and procedures that deal with the mechanical pieces of how their product is made to improve quality or to increase numbers. Because those things are so closely measured, it’s fairly simple to know if the action taken has the desired impact. But those same companies rarely make similar levels of investment into ensuring their values are truly embedded throughout their workforce since measuring that is so much less common (but not necessarily more difficult).

Cindy and I have done quite a bit of work recently with an organization to help improve the overall communication in their manufacturing areas, between supervisors and their team members as well as trainers and trainees. While I don’t think it’s been painted on the wall anywhere, or even made it into a fancy frame in their lobby, it sure seems like communication has become one of the values they’re building into their culture! And although I don’t believe measuring the financial impact better communication will have on their bottom line will be difficult, it will indeed require looking at things a bit differently than they’re used to!

Through the Strategic Leadership Coaching we’re doing with one of those leaders, we were given an example of how folks in a particular department can frequently spend up to 30 minutes searching for material that was stored in the wrong location. Since the supervisor has been in that line of work for over 30 years, they’ve developed some “tricks of the trade” for finding that same material in less than five minutes! As we discussed this HUGE difference (and it really is huge when you consider multiply that time by several employees on each shift, occurring several times per shift for each of them, in a 24/7 operation), I challenged the supervisor to consider a way they could package the system he’s developed over three decades into a simple approach his less seasoned team members can apply. He could, and he did. While he wasn’t able to give them everything he had access to, he was able to show them several things they could do to speed up the process significantly. It all boiled down to what information was communicated and how it was delivered!

Here’s where you’re probably thinking, “OK, Wes… That’s not such a big deal…” And you’re absolutely right! That was a fairly simple step to take. But when we quantify the impact it has on the overall process over weeks, months, or even years, the tangible value is HUGE! However, capturing that tangible value almost never happens… More often than not, we explain something like this to one person and go one with our lives - and end up fighting through the same issue indefinitely. If we’re willing to take a couple of extra steps to formalize it though, and we work to capture the actual improvements that come as a result, showing the specific value of living out our values isn’t all that hard…

When we are firm in what we really value and we can clearly define why we actually value it, showing the tangible value is as simple as paying attention to the numbers. Over time, those things become the core of our organizational culture and we can see the return on investment in every aspect of our bottom line!