Everyone has heard the expression “Strategy eats culture for lunch” by now, but not all leaders have slowed down enough to address it proactively and with the conviction they do with other parts of their role.
I think this stems from many leaders being so task and accomplishment focused (i.e., the “doing”) that they often don’t take the time to reflect on what lights them up personally (i.e., “being”). This lack of deep insight into their values makes it almost impossible to authentically lead a discussion around organizational values. Without this foundation of self and collective insight, there is no way to architect the practices, symbols, and other people aspects and priorities that cumulatively combine to create organizational culture.
It’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about the work I’m doing with CTI’s Co-Active Coaching certification program. Helping people be connected to their passions and values allows them to lead authentic, aligned lives which are – in my opinion – essential building blocks of authentically unique cultures. Don’t get me started on organizations using generic lists of values, or Marketing people deciding that their branding duties means they get to author the company’s values. Branding follows values, not the other way around.
Fast Company has a pretty quick, concise article of how values informs branding and all aspects of life inside an organization. “If there’s any doubt about the value of investing time in culture, there are significant benefits that come from a vibrant and alive culture:
- Focus: Aligns the entire company towards achieving its vision, mission, and goals.
- Motivation: Builds higher employee motivation and loyalty.
- Connection: Builds team cohesiveness among the company’s various departments and divisions.
- Cohesion: Builds consistency and encourages coordination and control within the company.
- Spirit: Shapes employee behavior at work, enabling the organization to be more efficient and alive.”
Author’s 2021 update: I recently completed a fun project with a market research company who previously came together via acquisitions that were never integrated into one company. I began working with them and their new leadership team to help them discern company values and purpose this way:
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- We identified their favourite experiences inside the company and clarified what they valued in that moment
- We clarified their company’s purpose in the world, the noble and motivating reason for its existence (which is NOT what you do but WHY you do it, who that benefits, and the follow-on benefits if the team enabled those benefits for its customers)
- We clarified their company’s aspirational customer experience to understand what they valued about those moments and to clarify which organizational capabilities and metrics must be in place to reliably achieve them (this was a left and right brained exercise)
- We clarified their company’s aspirational employee experience to understand what they valued about those moments and to clarify how they wanted to work together and the metrics that must be in place to reliably achieve them (this was a left and right brained exercise)
- We then asked ourselves where we needed to start to close the gaps between our aspirations and current state (the stretch). These became the initiatives and commitments for the year, many of which create amazing leadership development opportunities and a true way to bring “proof points” to something intangible like culture.
People resonated with the balance between evocative and declarative statements and the more tangible and actionable ways of running the business. This is not a one time thing; that aiming exercise can and should be done regularly to tune into both character and capability.
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I hope this has been helpful and of course the Adaptive Talent team would welcome the opportunity to help you and your team improve your results and adaptability via our culture and organizational development consulting, communications and coaching / mentoring training, total rewards consulting, assessments, leadership coaching and development programs and retained search to help you land high impact talent.