Defining & Living Values: Part 1 of High Performance Teams
Part 1: Define And Live Your Values
Define and live your values are a set of behavioural and verbal principles that the team upholds at all times, independent of the current conditions. Values are the roots of your culture and provide a framework of how team members behave, speak, and conduct themselves when faced with tough decisions. Teams are continuously met with challenging decisions in high stress situations. When times are tough, does your team lay people off? Blame others or external circumstances? Do they lie or falsify information? Do they take a profit hit to save jobs? These challenges and the decisions surrounding them will create the framework for your company's success, without them, individual team members may rely on their own impulses to make decisions.
In terms of actually determining the best values for your company there are several ways you can go about it.
What are some words that come to mind when asked: What do we want people to say about us? (Our clients, co-workers, bosses, customers, suppliers, buyers, etc.)
What would you like your employees to say when they’re asked “so what’s it like to work there?”
What principles do we want guiding our behaviour in times of uncertainty and difficulty?
Let’s use Salesforce as an example. When the Salesforce team needs to make a decision these are the principles that are going to help guide their decision-making process:
Trust, trusted relationship within the team and its customers
Growth, based off of mutual success, when your customers do well, so do we
Innovation, thinking differently is in our DNA
Equality, respect for people of all backgrounds
Getting your values down on paper is an important step- however, values are so much more than just words. While they should be displayed prominently, what we really want is to take them from the wall to the floor. As a leader, what this means is that living these values is your best teaching tool; it is your own personal example to your employees on what is expected of them. What are very specific things we can say and do that will let everyone know that these are our values?
In order to maintain a defined and lived value system a team and their leader must provide a ‘compass’ for the employees to navigate what is acceptable, encouraged, and expected behaviour and what is not. For example, a company names transparency as an essential component to the team and the company’s success. But putting transparency up as a value and living it are two different things—a leader must drive this behaviour consistently. Has the leader set the company’s definition of transparency? Is there a set of criteria for employees to follow? Is there a system in place to give/accept open feedback? ie. meetings, suggestion box, reviewal processes. These are all important conversations and thoughts to have prior to setting values, but once you have laid out this groundwork your team will feel empowered—especially when it comes to high pressure decision-making to take on these challenges and be successful at them.
Many times leadership fails to determine and communicate values consistently and effectively. In this case, employees, and even customers or clients won’t be able to get a strong understanding of what your company stands for. This becomes a problem when you are looking to build brand loyalty and improve client retention. A client, a successful one, will most likely have a strong value system in place, and they are most likely looking to see if you align with them. Understanding your values helps the client understand your priorities, decision-making process, and can be a way to amplify their purpose with yours.
In terms of your employees, a lack of a strong consistent value system may cause them to react to what seems important in the moment and begin working in silos rather than collaborating with their colleagues. Without guidance on the important pillars of the company, employees will begin to succumb to the pressure of ‘making the numbers’ or ‘hitting targets’ instead of caring about their colleagues, their customers, and having a greater impact. They may begin to make small unethical slips; these adjustments, if gone unchecked, can ultimately lead to larger ones. This can become a slippery slope, ultimately leading to a fractured culture of no accountability. For the individual it can lead to being fired, for the company however, it can create a false sense of progress or success, which will ultimately come into light after larger, possibly irreversible mistakes or decisions are made.
Part 2: Humanize Your Communication