Here is a subject upon which I have changed my view by 180 degrees over the last few years. I do that very rarely, and admit it even less.
I am talking about one of a company’s “3 Statements”, comprised of Mission Statement, Vision Statement and Values Statement. In the past I have dismissed this as “North American nonsense” and just a small step from calling every senior manager a vice-president. But over the last few years my views have been changed, mainly by the things I have seen.
Now if we accept that your mission statement is addressing why your company exists and your vision statement describes where you want to get to, I always thought these were important things to know, although why a company wanted to stencil them on the wall above the receptionists head in gothic font always worried me. I just didn’t understand what the values thing was about. Until now.
When a company goes as far as saying that their values are to be ethical, or environmentally friendly, or honest (Is it worth saying? Could this be a lie too?), or any number of other fluffy adjectives that they think their customers would want them to be, are they saying this because they believe it, or because they want their customers to believe it? My previous view was that a values statement was simply yet another marketing stunt. And indeed in some companies that I have worked with, it remains just that.
But what if you used your values statement to do what it was intended to do. What if, once agreed upon, it informed every decision you ever took within your company. What if it becomes so ingrained within your organisation that if you delegated a decision, then you would know that those same values had been used to guide the decision making process without you needing to be involved. Suppose it became part of the company DNA. Suppose people came to work for you because they supported your values, and even better, some people didn’t join your company because they couldn’t support those values that you hold dear. Wouldn’t that help avoid confrontation and an awkward parting of the ways down the line?
Imagine how much quicker you would reach decisions within a company if the values were already decided upon and stencilled on the wall in reception. You wouldn’t have to ask yourselves the awkward questions, just ask how this decision relates to your values, and therefore what was the best route to follow. Now I know that not all decisions in a business are pertinent to your values, but most of the hard ones are.
I know that some companies use values as an additional marketing ploy, but where companies believe in them and use them to inform their decision making processes, I am a newly recruited and extremely enthusiastic fan of value statements and I recommend you take a fresh look too.