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Are Values Worth It?
More and more organisations are printing their values on posters, web-sites and on those dangly things visitors wear around their necks.
Values such as “Enabling” “Honesty” and “Robust”
Nothing wrong with those
Except, forgive my asking this – what’s the point?
We would by and large all agree with values such as those
After all, I can’t imagine an organisation coming up with “Disabling” “Dishonesty” and “Frail”
Is the point to get people to behave in that way – to be enable, truthful and strong?
Isn’t that how you would want to behave, anyway?
Which makes these values seem a little patronising
If, on the other hand, such things do change behaviour, then great
What do you think?
With my very best wishes
David
X
I think it is (or should be) about prioritisation. Every person and company might be in favour of enabling (something), honesty and robust products, but if they had to pick, which one would come top? If a company has worked out its values accurately, then they are a reminder of what to put first.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is always the case - and if the values are just general "nice-to-be" terms, then they're pretty useless. Like "have a nice day".
Great post David. This is a tough one and my answer falls right on the yes/no fence!
Yes they do have some worth:
However, they can be overused and abused and as you rightly say above David, the company values should be the intrinsic behaviours we respond with or strive to achieve all the time! The company I work for developed a set of 6 values about 6 or 7 years ago:
As a team we have discussed, debated, argued (none of us see successful as a value!) and promoted success stories for each of the values over a long period of time and my team and I feel we live and breath these values (as well as our own) all the time! Often we find its the senior business management team who fall short of applying (never mind living them!) many of these values a lot of the time. In the end the values loose their value and really don't have any meaning for us - more often than not, when raised in conversation now they are used as the basis for sarcasm or humour!
Interestingly during 2009 when we probably should have been reminding our teams of the core values and what they mean - they were never mentioned!
Values are a nonsense when you spell it out like that David. It's just a company HR boffin feeling good about themselves because they have justified their salary. When all they've done is state the obvious.
It's like a report saying that, 'thanks to a quick thinking policeman...' When, actually, isn't that the person's job to be quick thinking? The values we have as individuals should not be thrown down our throats as patronising company beliefs.
There is always a good and a bad in every argument. Fascinating questions provoke both, as this has done.
Values can mean a lot in the right environment although when they are shot to pieces they mean little. It's mainly jargon I would say. The real essence of good business is within its people, not its ethos.