Welcome to the “Values” Boulevard - The Key to Organizational Success

Welcome to the “Values” Boulevard

The Key to Organizational Success

The main challenge of today’s corporate business is to engage and synchronize people towards the mission and vision of the organization.  Corporate values make up the corporate culture.  Similarly, when you share your values with your neighborhood.  They are the glue that ties people together and helps people homogenize and live in harmony.  If you move to a neighborhood that doesn’t share your values, you will ultimately leave because you have nothing in “common” with them.  The same is true in most families where values ties them together.  When we meet people with values, we pay them respect and call them people of “principles”.  

Values are simply your beliefs, perceptions, principles and disciplines that make up your attitude towards life.  The Oxford dictionary defines values as “principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgment of what is important in life, e.g. they internalize their parents' rules and values”.  Dictionary.com defines values as “n: beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something); "he has very conservatives’ values".  Values dedicate the way we behave, act and socialize as well as the way we think.  They reside not only in the conscious mind, but in the subconscious where the giant lies and are the derivates to our actions. 

This is true in corporate business too.  Organizations that leave a legacy behind focus on the entry level to the organization and ensure that people whom are being recruited meet the corporate values during the interview assessment.  

Almost all organizations that define their values would also spell out the attributes or the behaviours that make up those values in organizational terms. This is to ensure consistency of understanding and practice among all levels of the organization, in other words "one voice".  Few companies go beyond this and include values in any conflict resolution(s) or management of disagreements.   

http://lawyerasad.blogspot.com/2011/06/unlocking-power-of-your-subconscious.html

Living the values means that you walk the talk.  To walk the talk is very important for leaders, because it shows their true colors and credibility.  Those leaders set an example for others to follow and the only way they click with people is through the values.  In other words, they lead by example.  Without this common binding chemistry, there will be disbelieve, discontent and lack of trust among the people.  Consequently moral, ethical and other issues will rise slowly but surely to eat up the organization inside-out like a decay or epidemic that spreads through the organizational “grapevine”, which is the informal mean of communication in organizations. Hence, good leaders will abide by the values regardless of the situations that may face.   

In fact, values are a measurement of success in many organizations.  Studies have shown that organizations that live the value have a higher retention rate than the rest.  More teamwork, empowerment, faster decision making time, higher motivation level, citizenship, loyalty, confidence and trust, are few attributes of living the values, which all eventually contribute to the success and growth of the organization.   

Although values are hard to measure due to their subjectivity, they can be measure through few assessment tools such as assessment centers, psychometrics, face to face focused interview and so forth.  They can also be measure through observed actions.

An example of a set of values

The recent theory in leadership, which has been published by Steven Covey titled Principle Centered Leadership talks exactly how principles and values drive organizational success.

Values play a big role in the way people adhere to the laws, rules, regulations, policies, procedures and guidelines.  However, it is crucial to have birds of the same flock, sort of speak, through your recruitment process, as the old saying goes, birds of the same flock fly together. 

True leaders will soar high by living the values; build a culture and set a good example for others to follow.  Values are the baseline of engagement just like the soil to the plant, where organizations nourishes and nurtures on and without such fertile soil, organizations will definitely dry out and die, when times get tough and the heat is on.