What Can a Lack of Values Cost Us?

The interaction we’ve had with Craig, Kim, and their team over the years since they bought their business has given us a ton of clarity for the critical role values can play in a business. That experience has also helped us develop a clearer picture of who we can best serve through the work we’re doing; if we don’t align with them on values, the juice won’t likely be worth the squeeze for us or them! The biggest challenge, though, has been in determining where the rubber really meets the road with regards to a stated set of values in any organization.

Having just shared the growth Craig and Kim experienced in their business, and I’m convinced much of that ties directly to their emphasis on a clear set of values, we’ll look at some examples of what can happen when values aren’t modeled soon. Before doing that, I was hoping to offer some hard, statistically proven data for showing exactly what companies with clearly defined values yield through profitability increases. Unfortunately, that data is tough to locate - if it exists at all! For now, I’ll share how Curt Steinhorst closed his Forbes.com articled called “Rethinking the Value of Core Values”:

“Core values have weight, especially when they’re truthful and focused on what matters to the community within the organization. If they’re hollow, corrupted, misguided, or pretentious, they carry with them a falsehood that can trap and divide an organization. But if they are drawn from and representative of the community they serve, they can have the strength of steel. Like any principle or strategy, core values are difficult to forge and take time to develop and cure; but once they’re well-formed, they sustain you through everything else.”

If my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me and that 50% increase in revenue that Craig and Kim experienced in just twenty-four months of owning their business really did have something to do with their closely held values, why couldn’t I find a mountain of data with detailed examples backing Steinhorst’s statement? I certainly agree with it! It may tie back to what Pat Lencioni shared in Harvard Business Review article called “Make Your Values Mean Something” more than two decades ago:

"Given all the hard work that goes into developing and implementing a solid values system, most companies would probably prefer not to bother. And indeed they shouldn’t, because poorly implemented values can poison a company’s culture."

Maybe, just maybe, the work I saw Craig and Kim do to embed a clear set of values into the culture of their new company isn’t something many other business owners or executives are willing to do… But why is that? Most of the studies I read as I attempted to find that hard data showed that around 80% of companies today have their core values detailed on their website. We’ll begin looking at the disconnect next time…