Values Without Standards?

I have lost count of the organisations I have seen where the values are on the wall, on the screensavers or on lanyards. Typically they are words like Integrity, Excellence, Respect, or Compassion. Sometimes they are statements like Always Improving or We value every person. Then I hear from someone that has been publicly humiliated in a meeting, or how a manager took all of the credit for their team's work.

I once went to visit a business and one of the values on the wall was ‘compliance’…jeez! All I could see was "to work here, you must be compliant" and the face on the sourpuss receptionist made that likely. Organisational values say one thing, the behaviours that you experience often say another. Staff are not stupid, they see the gap and they stop believing. And once they stop believing, you have lost them.

The way I think about it is this; Values are what we say we believe, standards are the proof. You can talk about values and standards, and you can hold people to account, but neither builds trust on its own. Trust comes when people see them lived by everyone, especially leaders, every day.

In the British Army, values are not optional. The Army Values and Standards are clearly defined, widely understood and everyone is expected to live by them. Breaching them has real consequences.

Many civilian organisations have neither the clarity nor the consequences. Words that sound like the sort of thing that the business wants to be known for, but no definition of what those words mean in practice, no link to what the organisation is trying to achieve and no mechanism for holding people to account when the values are ignored.

Values without standards are just words, values that cannot be observed are unenforceable and values that are never enforced teach people that they don’t really matter...so what is the point?

Define What the Values Actually Look Like

Every value, as an absolute minimum needs a behaviour statement. Without one, it is open to interpretation, and people will interpret it in whatever way is most convenient for them.

A behaviour statement answers two questions: what does living this value look like in action and what does failing to live it look like? Both are important.

Take "Respect" as an example.

Most people would say they are respectful. I don’t know anyone that would describe themselves as disrespectful, but watch how a leader behaves with a junior colleague compared to how they behave with the CEO. Watch how someone speaks about a colleague when that colleague isn't in the room. Watch how a manager responds when someone brings them bad news. Those are the times when you can tell whether Respect is a value or just a word"

So the standard of "Respect" tailored to your role becomes this; you treat a junior colleague the same way you treat the CEO. You say the same things about someone whether they are in the room or not. You respond to bad news with curiosity, not blame."

By the way, single word values are a little bit dull and uninspiring. Value statements are better and as an example I love what Leading-Edge-Performance have created, so much so that I applied to work with them based on their values alone:

Unleashing human performance to change the game is our collective purpose and ambition. Together we:

CARE FIERCELY - Passionate about creating change in performance through the things which have impact

HUNT FOR THE EDGE - Continuously seeking transferable insights that will make a sustainable performance difference

ARE CURIOUS WARRIORS - Inquisitive context seekers, unashamedly confident to challenge and be direct

Link Your Values to Your Strategy

Your strategy tells people where the organisation is going and your values tell people how they are expected to behave along the way. The two should be inseparable.

For each value you must understand why it matters to where we are trying to get to. If you cannot answer that clearly, the value needs refining or removing. You must keep the list short, Three to five max. Any more than that and you are writing a wish list and not defining the desired culture.

Make the Values Observable and Measurable

If you cannot observe a behaviour, you cannot measure it. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. And if you cannot manage it, you cannot hold anyone accountable to it.

There are three practical ways to build ‘measurability’ in:

First, align feedback to specific behaviours rather than general impressions. "Does this person listen without interrupting?" generates more useful data than "Does this person show respect?"

Second, make values part of your performance review/annual appraisal process. If you only assess results and never assess how those results were achieved, you are rewarding people who hit their targets at any cost. Behaviour has to sit alongside output.

Third, use structured observation. If a manager is never watching how their people actually behave, they have no data to work from. Development conversations built on vague impressions are not effective.

Hold People to Account, Starting at the Top

Accountability is not a punishment. It is something to provides clarity, tells people where the standard is and confirms that the standard is real. Without it, the values won’t be lived because people are watching to see whether the values apply to everyone or just to those without any power.

The most important accountability conversations are the ones involving senior leaders. In our example of Respect, if a senior leader consistently talks over junior colleagues and nothing is said, the message is that the values apply to junior staff but not to senior staff which destroys credibility faster than almost anything else.

Accountability requires three things:

A clear and shared standard, specific and timely feedback and a real consequence for persistent failure to meet it. Without consequence, the standard is not a standard, it is a suggestion.

Embed the Values in Everyday Practice

Values cannot be an annual event or something that surface when it suits. They have to be a daily habit. I recently did some work with a Facilities Management Company in Portsmouth and they exemplify this approach. Their company tagline is ‘Integrity Built In’

Their values are present in all the conversations they are having. In one-to-ones, in project debriefs, after something goes well or badly. By doing this and asking a simple question like ‘did we behave in line with our values there?’ is enough to keep them alive. The MD regularly hold his team to account asking if that is “integrity built in or built out” behaviour.

They recognise values-led behaviour explicitly when they see it and have informal ‘integrity awards’. It ensures that people understand what has been noticed and why it mattered.

They consider the values a part of their hiring process. If you are not looking at this at the point of recruitment, you are creating a problem further down the line. Competence can be developed, a fundamental attitude is far harder to change.

The Truth About Values & Behaviours

None of this works if the people at the top are not living the values. This was embodied by Lieutenant General David Morrison in 2013 when he said “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. That goes for all of us but especially those that by their rank have a leadership role.”

If you are a leader thinking about values in your organisation, the first question is not how to get your people to live them. It is whether you live them yourself. Not when you are most visible, but every day, when you are tired, when the pressure is on, when the convenient option and the right thing to do are pointing in different directions. That is what your people are watching.

Start with your values, define them properly. Then link them to where you are going. Build measurement in and hold people to them consistently, starting with yourself.

That is the difference between values that change things and values that take up wall space.

Reflective Questions

• If someone watched you at work for a week, which of your organisation's values would they see you demonstrating consistently? Which would they struggle to find evidence of?
• If your team copied your behaviour every day, what culture would it create?
• Can you describe, in specific behavioural terms, what each of your values looks like in practice? If not, what does that tell you?
• When did you last have a direct conversation with someone about behaviour that was inconsistent with the values?
• Is there anyone in your organisation, particularly at a senior level, who is visibly not living the values without consequence? What message does that send?
• If your team were asked anonymously whether your values are real or inauthentic, what would they honestly say?