Core Values Matter

I (Cindy) gave an example recently in How to Build Company Culture of organizations many of us have read about or lived through where organizational values were neglected and the outcomes were tragic.   Maybe you remember Enron, or the Exxon Valdez oil spill, or maybe in the news today!

You don’t have to look far to see the consequences when values slip in an organization and the devastating impact that has on the people and the organization as a whole.

Let’s tie this together with some examples:

An organization's values should be the foundation of why the company exists, how behavioral norms are defined, and how decisions are made in order to achieve goals and fulfill the vision. They must be authentic and relatively specific, so they actually resonate with the team.

In a recent Forbes article titled Why Core Values Matter & How to Get Your Team Excited About Them, they summed it up pretty well on not only why core values matter but also touched on the importance of sharing core values with the team… which we’ll build out soon. 

Here are just some of what they shared:

Sure, all organizational leaders understand the importance of core values - the guiding light that bonds a team with a shared sense of purpose for achieving common goals. But defining values is one thing. Deeply ingrained them into the culture for driving desired business outcomes is very different.

A company culture – and its corresponding set of guiding principles (core values) - are either intentionally created and nurtured from the very beginning or - more typically - develop haphazardly over time through the beliefs and experiences of those on the team.

Leaders and managers must lean on the values of the organization to drive performance, especially during times of change. An organization's values should be the bedrock of why the company exists, how behavioral norms are defined, and how decisions are made in order to achieve goals and fulfill the vision. They must be authentic and pretty specific, so they actually resonate with the team.

This is just as true for an organization as it is in peoples’ personal lives. In fact, 63 percent of consumers say they want to buy products and services from companies that have a purpose that resonates with their values and belief systems. They will even go out of their way to avoid companies that don’t mesh with what they believe.

Simply put, organizational culture is what your people are acting out on a daily basis.  It’s how they think, how they behave, their shared values.

For a complete course, you can access our Recruitment, Retention & Culture program here.  And stay tuned for my next blog in the continuation of this series on Shared Values of the Team.