Why Do So Many Miss the Mark on Values?

I’ve never seen any organization’s executive team intentionally neglect living out their values, especially if they had a clear understanding of how much doing so could cost them! Whether it’s intentional or not, it happens more often than any of us likely realize. But how can that be when companies have routines in place for communicating their core values?

During the last two years I worked in a large manufacturing facility, I led the new hire orientation process for more than three hundred people. At that point, my responsibility was to issue policy manuals and cover the most critical details they’d be expected to understand from then on. In addition to attendance expectations and work rules, I covered the company mission statement - which doubled as the corporate quality policy. (That just so happened to also be printed on the back of the ID badge they’d be using to clock in and out each day.) Even after being drastically condensed by whoever handled such stuff out of an office just north of Chicago, the mission statement was still pretty wordy. I knew no one would actually memorize it - I certainly hadn’t in fifteen years I had worked for the company leading up to that - so I focused on the key points I felt were most critical to what those new employees would be dealing with in their roles daily. While this was the closest thing I can remember to covering the company’s core values during those orientation sessions, I can’t tell you what I explained actually lined up with what you would have found on the organization’s website. To that end, I don’t know that I ever knew exactly what the core values listed on that website were!

The rest of that half-day orientation included some basics from the safety manager and quality manager. The final half of their first day would be in the departments they’d be assigned to moving forward, albeit not always at the same equipment or even on the same shift. From the time those new team members hit the manufacturing floor, they were inundated with how-to’s that tied specifically to their new positions. I’ll let you guess how often any of that ever tied back to the company’s core values…

In the decade before moving into human resources full time, I had a different role in the new hire orientation process. I shared a brief overview of the behavior-based safety concept during the initial half-day session then provided four full hours of training on hazard recognition at the end of their first week. Since the new team members had been exposed to at least some of what they'd be doing in their regular roles by that time, I could go into quite a bit of detail about how they could ensure their behavior was in line with our safety rules. With any luck, that would serve as a foundation for helping them go home with all the parts they came in with each day.

Similarly, their on-the-job training provided a step-by-step approach for operating whatever piece of equipment they were assigned to. An experienced operator would walk them through performing each task or setting up the equipment to make a quality product without wrecking any tooling, all while hopefully avoiding injury. Like what I was attempting to provide through the behavior-based safety and hazard recognition training, the individuals training these new employees gave them visual examples of the work they’d be expected to perform.

While safety, quality, and productivity were critical to the organization’s success, I can’t honestly tell you that they were listed specifically as core values. And if I couldn’t list or define the core values, as one of less than forty salaried employees in the facility during my final two years with the organization, what are the odds of any one of those 300 new employees - or any of the other employees for that matter - knowing exactly what those values were, let alone how they could live them out in their daily routine? We may have touched on whatever the handbook listed as values occasionally, but I assure you it wasn’t enough to sink in. 

Make no mistake, I don’t share this to shame that organization. Quite honestly, the emphasis we placed on safety, quality, and productivity has been something I’ve been able to model in helping many other companies since. I’m just sharing that values didn’t get all that much specific attention, and I’ll bet you’ve had similar experiences. With that in mind, we’ll take a look at how simple it can be to change that next time…