Communicating Corporate Values

photo by pasukaru76

Harvard Business Review’s latest email tip of the day is around how to communicate your company’s values.  While this isn’t exactly rocket science it’s often easy to fumble identifying, communicating or changing the value system.

Rosanna Fiske’s first two points are vital.

1. Ask employees what is important to them

2. Establish values across the company, not just within management

A company’s value system cannot be mandated top down.  You didn’t mind being told what you valued when you were 6, but you also didn’t know any better.

Each day you contribute to your company’s culture based on what you value, how you get things done and how you behave.

In fact, everyone does.

So while a plush corporate off-site to hammer out new values feels like important work, it’s a boondoggle.  Without assessing the value systems of the employees, not as they experience the existing culture, but what they truly value in the workplace, the initiative is destined to be a very public flop.

Culture initiatives typically suffer the same fate as the boy who cried wolf.  You don’t get many chances to make an impact on the culture so don’t waste that bullet trying to create something without the feedback of everyone who walks through your doors today.

As I said, this isn’t rocket science.  The best way to guess what someone is thinking is to ask them.

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