Turning Corporate Values into Everyday Reality
Ever wondered if your company's proclaimed values truly influence the way work happens? Recent research from MIT Sloan Management Review sheds light on a stark reality – there's often a wide gap between what companies say and what their employees experience.
Source: MIT Sloan Management Review
82% of nearly 700 large U.S. organisations studied by MIT researchers have published on their website an official statement of their corporate culture, including “enduring” corporate values.
But when these claims were cross-referenced with over 1.2 million Glassdoor reviews, the results were surprising. The correlations were weak, and in some cases, even negative – including such key values as diversity, collaboration, and customer orientation! Core values like integrity, agility, and innovation also showed meager connections with daily practices.
Source: Gallup's 2023 Global Workplace Report
Gallup's 2023 Global Workplace Report also highlights a significant disconnect: 59% of global employees are disengaged ("quiet quitting"), while only 23% express enthusiasm for both their work and workplace. Among the disengaged majority, 57% attribute their lack of engagement to workplace culture and inadequate well-being.
More than 80% of official statements emphasise that values are meant to guide daily actions and decisions. The key lies in translating these abstract values into practical working agreements – sometimes also called guiding principles – rooted in the team's day-to-day challenges.
From Abstract to Actionable: Creating Guiding Principles
Step 1 Gather your team to create a concise joint agreement. Discuss company and team values to choose the most crucial ones — make them fit on one page!
Step 2 Develop a straightforward explanation, ensuring everyone understands what they mean in practice. Use verbs to detail how these values guide decisions.
Step 3 Use the question: if I were faced with a pivotal decision about [insert relevant topic], would this be the right criterion to decide?
Step 4 Simplify the wording for maximum clarity.
Example
Take Innovation – an often-cited value. Rather than leaving it open to interpretation, collaboratively define its practical meaning within your team, like:
“INNOVATION
Innovation means we are looking for new, more efficient ways to accomplish our work. It also means that we have the courage to experiment with new approaches, try new ideas and learn from failures”
Reinforcing and Living the Principles
To embed these working agreements into your team's culture:
Explicitly mention them in evaluations or performance recognition.
As a leader, embody these guiding principles, and hold team members accountable for upholding these values in behaviours and decisions.
This ensures that, in the face of challenges, you can address specific elements of the agreement, moving beyond vague concepts to tangible actions. It also provides your team with much-needed clarity about expectations, both as individuals and as a team.