3 Keys to a Values-Driven Culture
Have you ever had a reliable teammate who suddenly became complacent?
You want them to get back to where they were, but you don’t know how?
What if I told you, it isn’t about the work they are doing, but about how they do it?
How you work is just as important as the work you do.
If focusing on how you work can bring that coworker back to performing their best, imagine what would happen if we did that for every employee in your company.
But how do you create an environment that prioritizes how you work?
Where do you start when trying to create a dynamic workplace that is values-driven?
Let’s start with this question:
How do people at your workplace know what is expected of them?
Too often we make assumptions about the way things should be done. We all know what assuming does…but it also leads to confusion, misalignment, and lack of trust.
In Clickstop’s journey to becoming a dynamic workplace, the turning point was when we built consensus around our core values and key behaviors because it established a values-driven culture.
Culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage.”
– David Cummings, Tech Entrepreneur
Creating a Values-Driven Culture
Often companies view an investment in their culture as fluffy or optional. For so many, paying attention to how you work is something extra or secondary to getting things done.
I want to challenge you to think on this.
When you create a culture that invests in people, you create a workforce that invests in your business.
Values-driven cultures start by:
- Creating alignment
- Providing clear expectations
- Connecting to results
Alignment
A company rolled out a new set of values. They’d spent hours creating them, and they truly believed everyone was clear on what it meant to live them out. Then someone asked, “how do you know?”
The company president, CFO, and HR Manager each took turns explaining. Each one had a different understanding of what living out the values looked like. The president was looking for specific results. The CFO was looking at them with his own set of expectations. The HR Manager was looking for specific behaviors.
To drive and transform culture, having alignment around your defined values is critical, but not enough on its own.
Clear Expectations
According to Gallup, clear and high expectations are the foundations of employee engagement. Without them, it is nearly impossible to be successful.
If you’ve clearly defined and aligned around core values, then next, you need to get specific.
- Be like a dictionary: A dictionary has a word, a clear definition, and then context.
- Collaborate with input from all members, regardless of tenure, role, or team.
- Clearly articulate expectations concisely through action statements.
Providing employees with context through examples, stories, and action creates set of expectations or a Code that everyone can live by.
Connect to Results
Now, tie in the values and behaviors (how you work) to the work you’re doing every day. When you start communicating these expectations, you are:
- Demonstrating just how high the bar is set.
- Defining what excellence looks like for your workplace.
- Outlining how you measure alignment.
Remember the Company President we talked about before? He was only looking at results to measure performance. When creating a dynamic workplace, it’s important to view performance through two lenses, behaviors AND results.
Take time to reflect on what values and behaviors are contributing to the results you are seeing. How you work (your values and behaviors) is what makes your results sustainable, scalable, and meaningful!
That is what can bring your coworker (or maybe even you) back to being their reliable self at work.
The work that you do is only part of who you are.
It is how you work that sets you apart.
What sets your workplace apart?
