The Value of Values
My name is Chris Sowers. I’m an Organizational Development Consultant with ADVISA, and I recently had the pleasure of helping facilitate our “Diagnose & Define” process for a very unique client – our own team at ADVISA.
What is Diagnose & Define?
What does it have to do with values?
Why would we put ourselves through our own process – and why now?
Read on.
First, a personal story
This happened a few years ago. See if you can relate.
I could feel their glares boring into the top of my head, lowered so I could see my not-so-surreptitiously-hidden-under-the-table phone. “I just need to respond to this text,” I explained.
“No phones at the dinner table, dear father,” our 17-year-old scolded, in his best mocking-my-hypocritical-dad voice.
“Yeah, Dad, let me see what’s on that screen that’s more important than your family,” our 15-year-old chimed in.
My wife didn’t need words. The laser beams shooting out of her eyeballs were burning my scalp.
They were right, of course.
With teenagers being teenagers and my wife and I both working relatively energy-intensive jobs, the times we’re all at the dinner table together have dwindled to once or twice per week. And we try to keep that time sacred (i.e., no phones).
It was a classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do moment, and I’m glad they called me out. My behavior was not aligning with a value we have as a family.
You tell yourself, “Just this once.”
But you know the impact – whether it’s a parent at the dinner table or a leader in a staff meeting. Cynicism. Disengagement. “Why don’t the rules apply to Dad?” “Why even have Values if they don’t apply to my boss?”
I wonder what other Values around here don’t really matter. Even if it’s “just this once.”
More than words
Values must be more than just phrases on the cafeteria wall or corporate intranet landing page. For values to be meaningful and help shape organizational culture, all leaders – from frontline supervisors to the top of the org chart – must behave accordingly. This requires clarity.
It’s critical to the success of your organization that you establish clarity around:
- What the words themselves mean
- What’s accepted behavior and what isn’t
- How the words need to be operationalized
There’s a saying around ADVISA that culture is a combination of what you celebrate and what you tolerate. Values help you figure that out.
Practicing what we preach
To that end, ADVISA recently went through our own process to revisit and adjust our company’s Core Values. This is one of many services we facilitate for clients – leading them through clarifying and refining their values, sometimes even defining them from scratch.
The most recent version of our Core Values had served us well for over a decade. But the world changes. And workforce dynamics change. And sometimes, the specifics in the values need to change too.
So, it was time for us to take a fresh look at what’s most important to us. What comprises our DNA. What makes this place special, on our best days, even if some of it is a bit aspirational.
Progress begins with knowing two things:
#1: Where you are now
ADVISA’s proven process starts with our Leadership + Culture Assessment® (or “LCA” as we call it). The LCA is a proprietary tool developed by our own Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, Krista Warn.
The LCA starts with a survey sent to all employees. It captures data on how well leaders are leading and gives everyone a chance to voice what they like about the company culture as well as what elements of it don’t resonate for them.
The science that went into the LCA reveals incredibly useful information.
(Incidentally, our online “5-minute culture check” – ATLAS Navigator – is a brief immersion into this same science. If Navigator represents dipping your toe into the data pool, the LCA represents the deep end.)
#2: Where you want to be in the future
This data helps inform the Diagnose & Define Summit – a facilitated workshop where leaders come together to work with the LCA data. They also bring stories with them to share – stories that exemplify what it’s like to work here.
The workshop leads the team through working with the company’s Core Values (shown below) as well as defining 3-5 Leader Capabilities – AKA “LCaps” – that are currently the biggest levers to taking the organization to the next level.
All employees are then given a chance to provide feedback and input on the drafted values via focus groups, before the leadership team puts the finishing touches on them.
Culture is a combination of what you celebrate and what you tolerate.
New clarity and alignment
The result, for us, was a refreshed set of core values:
No B Team
- We play to win.
- We seize opportunities to choose courage.
- We take responsibility for results and relationships.
Heart at Work
- We see and appreciate the people in the work.
- We show up for what matters most – here and at home.
- We share our best and real selves at work.
Grow to Grow
- We own our strengths and our shadows.
- We unlock growth through data and expertise.
- We use feedback as fuel.
In addition to minting refined Core Values for exactly who we are today, we also redefined our Leader Capabilities to help our managers and leaders at all levels better understand expectations.
The impact has been immediate.
It’s not uncommon to hear language from our refreshed values in hallway conversations, and we even have traveling trophies that rotate monthly to employees who’ve exemplified the values.
Above all, these Core Values and key Leader Capabilities have helped clarify what’s most important. Kind of like being reminded to keep my phone away from the dinner table.
LEARN MORE + GET TAILORED INSIGHTS
If you’re intrigued by this process and the benefits of galvanizing your own very intentional set of Core Values, I invite you to request a free consultation.
Our Leadership Consultants are amazing.