I recently sent out an edition of my Weekly Ethics Thought that got enough mail that I figured I'd post a version of it here as well. It has to do with a few of the essentials of getting a values statement right. (And believe me, they are usually done incredibly dismally when they are done at all...)
If you've heard me speak, you have probably heard me talk about the enormous power of a well-written and appropriately implemented values statement. However, getting both the creation and implementation of a values statement right is a much more complicated and tough process than it usually sounds. To help out, though, here is a 'starter set' of six essentials for getting the creation part of your values statement right.
- Make it universal. Not 'worldwide universal' but 'organization-wide universal'. You want to only include values that should be the guiding force behind everyone's decisions in your organization.
- Make it brief. Listing four to six values is probably ideal, six to nine is arguably still 'do-able', and ten or more will simply be too many for folks to keep constantly in mind.
- Clarity is king. Work and work and work on each stated value so that it can be captured with as few words as possible while still being crystal clear. Remember you're going to expect every employee to keep these values in mind all day, every day so they better be pretty easy to both retain and apply.
- Utility is 'co-king'. Forget philosophy, abstraction and sloganeering in your values statement. You need to completely nail what are the most persistent and most important values that every employee is to use as a guide to their behavior. Philosophy, abstraction and sloganeering can't possible work for that. (See "clarity is king" above...)
- Get input from everyone. Before anything gets set in stone, run it past folks at every level of your organization - maybe more than once. If there's something that anyone doesn't get or feels doesn't apply to them, the work isn't done yet. Keep honing until it's really, truly both universally clear and universally relevant.
- Slower is better. A well-written values statement isn't something you can bang out at a staff meeting or a weekend retreat. (You can certainly start planning or writing one in such a setting - just don't fool yourself into thinking you can do more than that.) Not only is the process a whole lot tougher than it usually sounds but you need input and feedback from everyone and that simply takes time to do right. Four to six months is on the quick side in my experience but taking a year is often a sign that it hasn't been afforded the proper attention or effort.
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