Living Our Core Values

Core values are essential to enduring business greatness. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they all can work well for the companies that use them. Values are only as good as they are understandable and livable. If they are not clear or your people are not aligned with them, even where you force your people to recite them on command, they will still have no clue as to how the values actually affected them or their jobs.

According to research firm ‘Modern Survey’: “While having employees who know and understand organizational values does not ensure high levels of engagement, the absence of known values makes full engagement almost impossible to achieve. Furthermore, employees who respond that their organization’s values are not known and understood, or don’t know if those values are known and understood, are disengaged nearly 60 percent of the time.”

In fact, Modern Survey found that employees who know and understand their company values are 26times more likely to be fully engaged.

So, how can you make your core values livable?

• Put them in your vocabulary – Your values should be part of everyday language of your company.
• Make them actionable. Your values should not be so abstract that employees cannot find ways to practice them in their jobs. It should be easy to associate your values with specific behaviours.
• Create opportunities to practice them –Create events and initiatives like them that help you to put your values into practice.
• Measure success by them – You can use your values as a framework for setting goals and then measuring achievements.
• Walk the talks – You should ensure that every member of the organization is providing a kind of leadership in their roles which builds inspiration and is a model for practicing your company values.
• Identify (and celebrate) behaviour that aligns with them – Recognition (strongest when coupled with a tangible reward) is really the gold standard for making values livable. Values-driven recognition is a powerful tool for reinforcing culture and driving business results.

Values carry within them indestructible life that passes on lasting legacies to coming generations when we choose to live them.

You will reach your zenith!