Organizational values and personal values can—and should—coexist.
At one point in my career, I worked for a leader who was very focused on corporate performance. He was highly analytical, always looking at the quantitative—facts and figures, numbers and reports. In short: results. I initially assumed he didn’t give much thought to the human component of the organization, until one day I had lunch with him.
We’d finished the business discussion when he turned to me and said, “Phil, what motivates you?” I assumed he was just asking as a nicety; we’d talked about the business the entire meal and now we were on the dessert course, and I thought he was just making small talk. I replied to his question with something along the lines of, “It’s challenge that motivates me.”
The next thing I knew he had canceled his post-lunch meetings to spend more time with me. He sat with me for much of the afternoon, talking about my goals, my career, and my potential future within the company.
Underneath that numbers-crunching exterior there was a man who cared about people. In that moment his personal value, the care for each individual, overshadowed everything else. He acted on his convictions and put aside the bigger business for the sake of me. I never forgot it.
That experience showed me it’s possible to integrate your personal values into the corporate world. In fact, it’s my belief that you can’t consider corporate values without also considering personal values. However, finding a way for the two to coexist can prove a challenge.
Understanding the Interplay Between Corporate and Personal Values
Many organizations wrestling with the topics of the day, like employee engagement and empowerment, struggle with the values question. Too often, there is a disconnect between aspiration and implementation. The gap between personal and corporate values can be a challenge to close.
Understanding the interplay between corporate and personal values starts with a look at how corporate values are formed. From an organizational standpoint, there are three components to consider:
- Do you have them? The organization must take time to sit down and articulate its values. Let’s say someone asked you, “What values does your organization espouse?” Do you have an answer? If you walk into a retail clothing store and see a sign that says, “Our customers’ priorities are our priorities” that is an explicit value—customers come first.
- Do you see those values played out in the company? In a great organization the stated organizational values and the values that are implemented match. The problem is, they often don’t match. If you walk into onto a construction site and see a sign that says, “Safety Above All Else” but there’s a visiting group of executives on site without hard hats, the explicit value, safety first, isn’t reflected in their actions. There’s a mismatch.
- How do personal values compare to corporate values? This is a question good leaders answer for themselves. Suppose an individual works for an organization that identifies “teamwork” as a core value, but chooses to be a person who is focused on climbing the corporate ladder at all costs. Their personal value may be, “Me first, team second.” Again, there’s a mismatch.
That raises the issue of individual values. These aren’t posted by the company on a sign or printed on the corporate website. Your individual values are informed by your convictions, character, and commitments. Companies that expect people can, or will, leave their individual values at the door when they arrive at work are in for some serious challenges. Every human being, whether they intend to or not, will bring their values to the job. When you start talking about corporate values on top of all those distinct individual values, there can be some significant disconnects.
The Path Toward Integrating Organizational and Personal Values
So, how to manage the integration of those value systems? It starts with organizational values that are principle-based instead of practice-based. A principle-based value might be, “We respect the environment,” while a practice-based value might be, “We turn the lights off to save power and protect the environment.”
Another example: say a company doesn’t want employee education level to influence workplace interactions. The organization might assert a practice-based value, like “Education shouldn’t be a deciding factor in your conversations with others.” However, in reality, your conversation with a more-educated versus less-educated person likely varies. Instead of insisting on ignoring education altogether, the company might turn to a principles-based value, like “Respect other people for who they are.” When you turn to principle-based values you avoid many of the things that might cause personal conflict or concern for individual employees.
Establishing the appropriate values is only the first step. The second step is alignment: your organizational leadership needs to have universal alignment with, and commitment to, whatever values the company espouses. The good news is that achieving alignment gets significantly easier when you move away from practice-based and toward principle-based values because each person can interpret how to demonstrate principles-based values for themselves.
Seeing it in Action
That leader I referenced earlier integrated his own values of care for each individual into the company value of making results a priority. He did it because he recognized the link between the two, but also because the organization he worked for also espoused the value of human potential.
This is the kind of values-based leadership that engages people. It doesn’t come from posting a document. It comes from leaders considering their own values, those of their employees’, and those of the company. Organizations that want to create an environment where these values coexist for the success of the enterprise would do well to embrace a principles-based approach, in the process creating a more cohesive and engaged organization.