Many organizations craft value statements to guide the enterprise that are too broad to act on. The ambiguity of a general value statement fails to influence behavior in the way that leaders intend it to. Values like Respect, Teamwork, Integrity,
Client Focus, Sustainability, Excellence, and the like sound uplifting, but they are difficult to act on. Despite the common wisdom promoted by consultants, general values don’t really help to create a strong culture.
Team members simply don’t know how to apply general values day-to-day in ways that affect change. Leaders make values somewhat more actionable when they include a definition that elaborates on the concept.
For instance, consider this value statement: Innovation = encouraging creativity and new ideas to improve products, services, and processes. The expanded definition is more actionable but still falls short in significantly influencing actions throughout the organization. The best leaders go one step further.
They make organizational values more useful by describing the actual behavior they want team members to deploy every day. This step requires leaders to decide what they really want people to do. The ability to describe a specific action or behavior turns values into valued behaviors.
This allows team members to “live” a value. Let’s take the value of Respect as an example. Here’s the kind of value statement common in many organizations: Respect = valuing each individual, promoting a culture of diversity, and encouraging open communication. Instead of stopping at that level of precision, consider the power of taking this value and statement one step further.
One possibility, among many, is a statement like: Team members demonstrate Respect by actively listening in conversations and discussions without interrupting or talking over others. Such a statement directs action through specific behaviors (respect is about listening without interruption) and leaves relatively little to the imagination about what is expected.
Turning values into valued behaviors requires leaders to make choices regarding what they really value and want from team members. General values are much easier to craft and serve as a broad guide for action, but they don’t make the contribution leaders typically think they do.
Leaders who want team members to act on what the organization claims to hold dear need to get more precise. Valued behaviors build stronger cultures. General value statements are better for marketing materials.
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