When I met a former client at the edible store and asked him how things were going, I expected a small polite talk. Instead, what he said flew me.
The guy (let’s call it Jim) was an employee or a company with which our agency, Blueprint Creative, had worked a few years ago to improve its employee experience program. One of the main brand interventions included articulating and documenting the central values of the company: the non -negotiable principles that would be its employees with guidance what behaviors at work simply injured, and it is what.
Duration Our conversation, I asked Jim how things were going in the company after our brand intervention. He said (and this is a direct appointment), “things are going well for the company, but they go the same. I decided to adopt the company’s central values in my personal life and I feel that I am now a better father.”
Wait, what?
What we pointed to each brand intervention was that the organization had central values that each employee could adopt and use a compass to guide their actions in the workplace. But, clearly, by integrating the central values of his company into his routine outside the workplace, Jim not only had his best version in his professional life, but also in his personal life.
Unfortunately, this is not the case in many companies around the world. After all, one of Enron’s central values, the company in the center of one of the largest fraud and accounting scandals of the United States, was “integrity”, a central value that employees had raped with impunity.
But, in Jim’s company, their central values were so “sticky” that they stayed with some employees equally after they left the office to go home. This is quite extraordinary, consulting that research shows that only 23% of US employees agree that they can apply the values of their organizations to their work every day. Presumable, also fewer people believe they can apply the values of their organizations to their personal lives.
So how do some companies with convincing central values end that, as in the case of Jim, transform lives, while in other companies, employers do not know what are the fundamental values of their organization, or (such as Enron), openly float and do not respect their organization? Here are some tips on how you can develop a set of “sticky” central values that its employees adopt and respect.
Avoid generalization and ambiguity
Avoid generalized central values such as teamwork, integrity and trust. We like it or not, words like these mean different things for different people. Take “integrity,” for example. Sub compens’ Codes of Ethics May Prevent Them from Ever Enrolling in Fraudulent Behavior Like Enron Did, But The Company May No Problem Developing Products That Harm The Envernment, WHICH SOME MAY TO BE A COREHICAL BEHAVIOR -BETIOR -BETIOR -BAAVI -BAAVI -BAAVI -BAAVI -BAAVI -BAAVI -BAAVI -Bavi -bavi -bavi -bavi -bavi -bavi -Making One -Made -By -Making -Make a behavior made of a fact, doing a fate -By -By -Elging, making a baavio made to do, doing a betior -bavi -baviel made in fact, making an interpretation, and, by extension, difficult to enforce.
By articulating its central values, avoid using words wrapped in the language of generalization or ambiguity. Instead, it is specific and unequivocal reaching the very core of its central values. Keep reading to find out how.
Reach the core of its central values
Identify the central element of the principles you want your employees to adopt. For example, in Blueprint Creative, while we wanted team members to adopt the principle of teamwork, we pierce the specific element of teamwork that we want all our staff to embody, having their backs.
That is why one of our most treasured central values is “taking care of each other.” This central value oriented to action has become one of the favorite principles of one of the members of our team and is extremely effective to clarify a culture in which each individual knows that their colleagues will make an additional effort to help and support them.
If you want your central values to be effective, it is very specific about the central elements of each principle that you want your staff to follow. For example, if its definition of “integrity” implies environmental protection, its list of central values could include “minimizing damage to the environment.”
Similarly, the core of the broad principle of “innovation” could be “to be a problem solving” or “solve customers” the hottest problems. “If you want to articulate a central value that emphasizes the expectations of co -workers and customers, their central value could be” to make an additional effort. ”
Be very descriptive
In order for central values to be really convincing, it must describe and document in unequivocal terms what its central values means. Consider developing a central values manual, or a series of audio or videos that explain what each of its central values means and how each individual can apply their central values to their roles.
Examples, stories and analogies of the real world of the Usse that leave no room for misinterpretation. Being highly descriptive, it can provide the clarity that employees need to live their central values in the way it was intended to be lived.
Integrates the central values in daily conversation
If you want your central values to be lived every day, see them every day. That is exactly what the tasty catering does. At the beginning of each meeting of three or more employees, tasty catering employees repeat the company’s central values, which leads to employees who repeat the central values several times a week, so it is virtual and impossible to forget which yellow nucleus.
Staff members are also encouraged to use their central values to solve disputes and make decisions. If you want your central values to be effective, find ways to integrate your central values in the daily life of your employees.
Choose central values that extend beyond the workplace
People are more at peace when the principles that guide their personal and professional life are aligned. No one is to guide by a set of principles at home and by another set of principles (of low levels) at work. As Mahatma Gandhi is cited as he said: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.”
What Jim did when adopting the central values of the company in his personal life led to his thoughts, words and actions to be in perfect alignment if he was in the workplace with his colleagues or if he was at home with his wife and children. But, that only happened because the central values of themselves were to be adopted in their personal life, memorandum only their professional life. Choose central values that add value to the professional of their employees and Personal lives.
Promulgate responsibility
Never allow your employees to miss the respect for their central values. If the infraction is lower, a transparent and direct conversation with the employee who has acted against its central values should go enough for that employee to return to the right path.
But serious (or repeated) infractions may require disciplinary actions or even dismissal, especially if that infraction threatens the company’s future or puts employees at risk, for example, or the actors sign the company’s process process.
Having convincing central values can make it a lot to manage its employees and can lead to a competitive advantage in the market, only if their employees adopt them and live them every day. The above tips can help transform their central values of being forgettable into powerful and “sticky” tools that help it build a stronger brand and a stronger business.