Values Are for Living Not Laminating

By Alan Williams, Founder Director, SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL

Putting values at the centre of everything an organization does is the starting point to creating a strong and authentic brand. This is particularly relevant for service organisations where people are the offering.

Why is it such a challenge to be a values-driven organisation… in practice? How can you avoid the four mistakes organizations regularly make (and you might be able to add more to the list). Consider the questions in each section and how they relate to your own organization.

1) Lack of clarity — Clarity means identifying the true values and clearly describing what they mean.

2) The values exist in theory rather than in practice — In practice means putting the values into action throughout the organization.

3) Insufficient assessment — Assessment means measuring the impact the values have internally and externally.

4) Lack of a development mindset — Development means learning from efforts and continuously developing the way the values are brought to life in everything that happens in the organization.

If you were to reflect on these four mistakes and ask yourself the question “Which is the most important one to address?”, which one would you choose? It’s an unfair question because all four challenges need to be addressed …. all at the same time. If any one area Is not addressed, then the organization will not be able to function in a truly values-driven way. The question asked at the start of this post was “So why is it such a challenge to be a values-driven organisation… in practice?” Perhaps you now have a better understanding of why this is the case. And yet, none of these four challenges are impossible to overcome. Far from it. Improvement across the four areas does not involve a huge investment of time, money or other resources. What it does take though is a collective commitment led from the most senior level and throughout the whole organisation, followed by a relentless determination to follow a values-driven path. Sustained success requires sustained effort, leaders need to lead……in practice. Think of the work we do in this area with organisations as a pincer movement: actively guided from the boardroom, powered with passion from the frontline. This mindset is supported with a set of tried and tested tools to establish clarity, bring the values to life every day, measure stakeholder perception and follow a robust process to maintain focus, discipline and improvement.

“96% of CEOs agree that it is important for leaders to take time to explain how values influence business decisions.”

The Financial Reporting Council has been perhaps the most influential source of governance advice around the world, as originator in 1992 of the widely copied Corporate Code. In 2018, the FRC tore up its previous code, with a radically rewritten version for consultation that stresses long-term success and proposes a new requirement for businesses to test its values across the business, from top to bottom. The new revised text is as follows:

Whilst the FRC itself is being replaced by a new regulator, The Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority will have enhanced powers and a brief for “strong” leadership to “change the culture” of the auditing sector so there is a real opportunity for the topics of culture and values to be placed squarely at the centre of corporate governance.

We are living in extraordinary times — volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. The pace of change will never be this slow again. Many traditional approaches are no longer relevant and there is a new business agenda emerging. It has become fashionable for organizations to describe themselves as values-driven and yet, for the stakeholders (employees, customers, service partners, local communities, investors, members, citizens) of some, if not many, of these organizations, there is a disconnect between the aspirational words and the experienced reality. Actual, living values are now mainstream. Values are the organisation’s guiding compass and are most effective when they inform everything else an organisation does.

Alan Williams is the Founder Director, SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL and coaches leaders of progressive service sector organisations, internationally and in the UK, to deliver values-driven service for sustained performance. He created the award-winning 31Practices approach to convert employees into brand ambassadors by translating organisational values into practical day-to-day behaviour and is a published author and speaker whose projects have delivered measurable business impact across a balanced scorecard.

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