Create a Company Values Statement That Resonates with Staff and Clients
What are Your Corporate and Team Values?
Published 20/02/2023
Written by: Chris Schutte
“We are going to see companies increasingly assume that what they stand for in an enduring sense is more important than what they sell.” – Jim Collins – Co-author, Built to Last.
Table of Contents
What are Company Values?
Every organisation has a set of Values, whether they are written down or not.
Values guide the perspective of the organisation as well as its actions, which are generally driven by a minority—typically the owner or senior management team. Writing down a set of commonly held Values can help an organisation define its culture and beliefs. When members of the organisation subscribe to a common set of Values, the organisation appears united when setting goals and dealing with challenges.
Why Values are Important
Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. However, producing strongly defined Values and living them, requires real willpower from the senior management.
An organisation considering a Values initiative must first come to terms with the fact that, when properly applied, it can motivate, but may also inflict pain. Values can make employees feel they belong, but some employees may feel like outsiders.
Therefore, an organisation’s set of values may be seen to limit its strategic operational freedom and constrain the behaviour of some of its people. A set of Values could leave executives open to heavy criticism for even minor violations, and they demand constant vigilance.
A Case Study: InterACT's Values
To illustrate this point, we used the InterACT system to define the most important 21 current values of our company—InterACT-Global. We use one of the prescribed methods from three alternative methods to determine our company values ranking.
The outcome was as follows:
Major Drivers
Achievement, Ability Utilisation, Variety, Financial Rewards, Concern for Others, Creativity, Business Ethics
Rejected Drivers
Risk, Physical Challenges, Physical Activity, Cultural Identity, Close Relationships, Predictable Environment, Prestige
Creating a Values Statement From The Results
Once we had reviewed the results, we then integrated our top 7 values motivators with the 7 bottom demotivators (or effectively rejected values) and with the assistance of a wordsmith we formulated the following statement using the results:
“We are driven by professional standards (Business Ethics) for psychometric assessments to minimise the risk (low or rejected risk) of people management for our clients (concern for others). Our approach for our clients is creative (creativity) yet practical and filled with passion for our products and services (business ethics and achievement).
Our people are encouraged to grow and develop (Ability utilisation) in a culture of trust where we value variety (low on cultural identity) and entrepreneurship (financial reward).
We never compromise our business ethics and always ensure we listen to our clients and save them risk and money.”
Author of this Article
Chris Schutte
Chris has 30 years experience as senior manager and entrepreneur in the Human Capital consulting and management industry, using the DISC test in his practices. He has a wealth of experience in business development, Human Resources and Human Capital risk management and turn-around strategies. His leadership experience, runs across various industries including Manufacturing, Retail, HR, etc.