Values Core to Your organization

A human being who has been taught or imbibed values in life on his own is very clear as to what is important and cannot be compromised. As for example, a person for whom, the value of honesty and integrity is high on his list of core values will not need to think twice, before turning down a dishonest proposition. Life becomes a lot easier with clarity and certainity when you have your 'core values' as the guiding light when faced with tough decisions.

Similarly, an organization that has declared and is living its core values will be able to handle conflicting internal/ external pressures and wade through seemingly difficult and turbulent economic storms with relative ease. These guiding principles and fundamental beliefs enshrined in the "Core values" help employees to function together as a team and work toward a common business goal. Business relationships, customer relationships, and company growth are all tied to the corporate values of the company.

The mission (discussed in detail in the last post titled "Ultimate purpose of an organization"), vision and the core/ corporate values (together) of a company determine the culture of the organization (click here for organization culture blog). 

It is seen that even the so called 'experts' have differing views on what is a  'mission' and a 'vision'. Some attribute the reason for existance of the intitution to the 'Mission' statement while others link it to 'vision'. However , they agree that one of the two terms gives the broad purpose/reason for existance and the other the destination and how you plan to reach there. I have accepted the position that the latter refers to the 'vision'. A reading of the mission and vision statements  of Tesla given below would give a fairly clear idea: 

Mission: To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.
Vision: To create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world's transition to electric vehicles.

To sum up, along with the mission and vision of the company corporate/core values have a very imporatnt role in shaping the destiny of the organization. They determine an organization's internal and external standards and the behaviour of employees amongst themselves, with customers and external agencies. The core values of Hyundai Motor Company where I worked last, prior to retirement are (1) Customer (2) Challenge (3) Globality (4) Collaboration and (5) People.

The said values inspire employees to keep in mind the 'customer's interest' in what ever they do. The company expects its individual employee and teams to challenge themselves to achieve greater heights. As for example if a project was commissioned in two years, employees are motivated by the "Challenge" core value to do it in a year or one and half years. Similarly the "Globality" value inspires employees to think globally and maintain global standards in whatever they do. "Collaboration" is an important core value that team members practice to achieve big results. People orientation and behaviour is ensured by the "People" core value.

Integrity, respect, innovation, and drive are held important core values by many organizations while others hold inclusion, ownership, trust and transparency as vital and significant. What is important is to have core values suitable to your organization, the ones that represent you, your mission and vision the most. The ones to which the employees and stakeholders relate to easily. The values that best represent your brand.

In this connection, after coming up with some core values based on your basic objectives as an organization, consult your employees and take their feedback. Do they also think the said values are important ? At the end of the day it is the employees who would be translating them into their day to day work. The procedures, processes and work flows would be determined by these values. They have implications for both employees and customer experiences.Therefore the buy in of employees is very crucial for successful adoption of core values in the day to day work. Further, you can look at the values adopted by competitors that have worked for them. Have they missed out on something which you can include?

It is advisable to limit the number of core values to around five. Too many can be confusing and difficult to practice. They can always be modified later to suit contemporary situations if necessary. Employees work best when their personal values are in sync with the company values as they have a sense of belongingness and tend to naturally and spontaneously own the goals of the company. 

I would like to conclude this post with the observations of authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras whose 1994 book "Built to Last" drew attention to the phenomenon that companies that lasted for many years had a set of principles called "core values" that they strictly practiced. Speaking of core values they said "Being inherent and sacrosanct; they can never be compromised, either for convenience or short term economic gain. Corporate core values may reflect the values of the company's founders."  

This post is a part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2023