Company values dictate company culture ‒ for better or for worse. Achieving productive, collaborative teamwork within a positive and supportive environment requires you to work actively towards it. You cannot expect it to happen on its own.
If your business doesn’t own, define, and care about the values that define its culture, it will evolve on its own, potentially in ways that are detrimental to the company. Therefore, it is crucial to establish, develop, and uphold your company's values. Otherwise, they may emerge on their own in ways that you cannot manage.
Company values are a set of guiding principles that your company, as a collective entity, holds dear. These are core beliefs that, if followed, will guide the business towards success by ensuring that everyone works towards a common set of goals.
Values can be just about anything, depending on the company, but they typically lean into concepts such as integrity, loyalty, trust, respect, value-centricity, sustainability, and honesty. Generally, company values dictate how business relationships should be managed and how growth should be pursued.
Business success all comes down to making decisions. These might include decisions like whether or not to hire someone, make a purchase, enter into an agreement, or adopt a new process. At the end of the day, making the right decisions can make or break a business. This is a lot of pressure, but having a strong set of well-defined values can help you ensure that your decisions are always aligned with your strategic and ethical direction.
Having a nice set of values on paper is one thing. Turning those values into behaviours, however, is the secret to using them effectively and achieving success. Unless your values are clearly defined first, you cannot influence behaviour with purpose and direction. This will assist you in directing behaviour in a manner that promotes the development of the desired corporate culture.
One of the most unifying things a company can do is foster a unique corporate identity that is differentiated from everyone else. Achieving this starts with the delineation of company values that are uniquely derived from your company’s individual identity.
By avoiding generic cliches and developing unique values that are specific to your company, you can galvanise your team into a single-minded unit that understands its singular purpose and identity in a market full of competitors.
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