Clear vision provides a compass point for staff to follow

Staff will perform better when a company walks the talk on its principles. Photo / NZ Herald

Understanding your company's values and being true to them provides stability for your organisation and a basis for staff to feel a sense of connectedness with the organisation, which helps with staff attraction and retention.

So says Ruth Donde, regional manager, New Zealand, of Results Coaching Systems.

"Values and culture are linked. If the culture of your organisation is hierarchical - that is fine - but you need to attract people who thrive in that sort of environment and believe in status and titles - people who fit in with the company's values."

She says it doesn't help to say your values are one thing when in practise they're another - such as a hierarchical organisation saying that everyone counts in the same way.

She says you need to go through a process in realising your company values - not just put a group of words together and stick them on a wall.

"Understand what's important to your organisation, what's going on in it, and what do you want it to be like. This doesn't take a couple of meetings - it can take months and involves deep discussions and plenty of honesty.

"It's good to involve the whole company and not just have a top-down approach. In the end the key for buy-in is embedding those values.

"For example, if teamwork is a key value, don't give out individual rewards. It doesn't make sense if you're trying to encourage teamwork to give a bottle of wine to the top achiever - reward the whole team that does the best. Also, make collaboration a part of your KPIs."

Jasbindar Singh, coaching psychologist and executive coach of SQ Executive Management Consultancy, agrees.

She says: "Values are fundamental to the purpose and strategy of your company. You need to ask: Who are we? What are we trying to achieve and how do we best get there.

"Typically the senior leadership may do some work on what values they deem important for their business but invariably this needs to be rolled out and tested with the staff at all levels.

"They need to have some input into the kinds of attitude and behaviour the chosen values translate to."

Singh says being clear on values is very important.

"For example two different companies may have innovation as a core value. For one the translated behaviour may be around taking risk while for another the focus maybe more about looking out for a different ways of doing things."

She says what makes values clear is the sincerity and authenticity that is behind it and how they get lived out in day to day organisational life.

"Intangible as values are, they become important markers and signposts through everyday management and employee behaviour and decisions."

Donde says you need to be able to explain what your values are about to employees.

"What do they mean to an individual's role. How are they to be measured?"

She says it's important for managers to be espousing company's values. "If they're not there must be some way of questioning that."

Singh says your values are the foundational touchstone of you personally or your business.

"Be congruent in your words and deeds. Managers and leaders can destroy their people's trust and leave them feeling disengaged if they are not walking the talk," she says.

"Take consistent action and let your values grow virally. It's a boomerang effect, the more you live it the more your values get reinforced and this in turn strengthens the company culture."

Donde says doing the work to discover and encourage your company's values helps you decide what pathway you want your business to go down.

"Actually, it helps the bottom line, but a lot of companies don't quite seem to get the importance of it. It is vital to integrate a company's values into the day-to-day business.

"Say the organisation has decided that things should be kept simple, but has created a lot of paperwork and loops to go through, making it very bureaucratic - that brings a lack of congruity and can lead to cynicism in the workplace."

Donde says you can't just hand out values in a list. "Diagnose what your company values are, determine what they are - it's not about deciding."

She says when you do have a list of words (such as integrity, teamwork or competitiveness), define each one to make it clear.

Singh says: "Values provide the compass for a company to conduct its business to move towards its vision and fulfil its purpose. Values are meaningless if they are not reflected in people - employees and management behaviour.

"Research has shown companies with clear vision and values consistently do better - financially and otherwise." She says leaders set the tone and context of organisational culture.

Managers and leaders particularly need to be aware of "who they are being" and "what they are doing".

They are setting an example and benchmark of what is okay and what isn't.

They need to be good role models in creating a culture where people, regardless of their position, have a sense of pride in living and delivering on their chosen values.

"Leadership integrity is truly compromised and a great deal of credibility, trust and engagement is lost when certain values are espoused as being fundamental to the business but fail to get reflected in everyday behaviour. Doing as you say and leading by example is critical."

She advises: "Even the most successful and aware manager can be unconscious about one or two dimensions of their own behaviour and its impact. For example, they could be misjudging their levels of responsibility or accountability relative to what they actually do.

"Listening to feedback is vital from others to ensure that they are not letting themselves and others down."

Donde says understanding your company's values helps with attraction and retention. "It helps prospective employees to have more understanding of their role, what they're expected to do and whether the company is a good fit for them."

These days many of the top employees will look at the company's values and how they implement them before accepting a position - they want a good mix with their own values and they identify with organisations that hold their values.

For example, an individual who has concern for the environment often will choose to work for a company with "Green" credibility.

Singh agrees it's important to recruit staff who hold to the company's values.

"Ask the candidate for values that are important to them and examples of how they have demonstrated this," she says.

"The ease with which they can answer this along with solid, verifiable examples will give some indication as to the kind of values which are important to them - and their possible fit.

"It will also indicate as to whether they have even thought at a values level.

"With short-listed candidates, I have used a specific psychometric tool to measure people's levels of integrity and values.

"For example, an employer may have two or three candidates that they are pretty keen on but to be able to establish who will actually deliver on what they say they will is a very powerful insight to have."

Singh says similarly you can do a comparison on whole raft of other factors such as truthfulness, levels of self-awareness and accountability.

"An employer may have potentially two good candidates but if one rates a low two on responsibility and the other one is a strong eight or nine, it becomes very clear as to who is going to keep their word and take ownership even if the outcomes are undesirable.

"This can be a major cost saver to the business down the track if they select the right candidate at the outset."

Singh adds: "What is interesting is that while values tend to be intangible, below the water line beliefs, they nevertheless translate into tangible, obvious and discernible actions.

"As a customer, one can almost feel the values of a company in how one is treated.

"For example, in a situation where there is some conflict, how a customer is listened to - or not, whether there is a sense of respect and overall orientation towards problem solving and meeting some way to make things right are all indicative of the values a company holds.

"Contrast this to an experience where it's hard to pin down anyone and where no one is taking responsibility - they are just passing the buck."