Guided by, and a true believer in, the importance of upholding organizational values, I was excited when I saw the headline of this Harvard Business Review article, “How to Create Company Values That Actually Resonate.”
I don’t disagree with HBR’s ideas on how to market and communicate an organization’s core values, but I wanted the article to go further.
Far too often organizations rely on marketing alone to tell their values over actions that show their values. When this happens, very well-meaning organizations compromise their impact, fall short of their values, and replicate the same systems of harm they are working to fix.
At Just Possibilities, we believe the real reason an organization’s values don’t reinstate is not because they’re not visible, catchy, and creative; it’s because they are not operationalized.
When values are not operationalized, they are not felt. And when values are not felt, they are not believed; and when values are not believed, they will never resonate.
However, when values are operationalized and put into practice, and when they inform decision-making at every level within an organization, they move from being words to actions and are felt and believed by those interacting with and within the organization. When this happens, values not only resonate; they thrive.
“Business is rife with situations that require us to choose between ethical and fiscal responsibilities; between doing what is right and doing what is simple, or most profitable, or more popular. The right choice is not always obvious… but it should be.” ~ Ginni Rometty, ‘Good Power: Leading Positive Change in our Lives, Work, and World’Why does operationalizing organizational values matter?
Operationalizing organizational values, defined as putting values into action, is crucial for an organization's performance and culture. Operationalizing organizational values:
Drives growth by creating a positive work environment and improving employee engagement and productivity, this is directly linked to improved organizational performance.
Improves change management and empowers employees by providing a framework for transparent decision-making, leading to aligned choices that maximize resources, impact, outcomes, and yes, workplace culture.
Increases retention, loyalty, and trust for employees and those most impacted by the organization’s work, culture.
Builds relationships and increases support and resources from donors, partners, and clients because the mission is felt, and this aligns funders and supporters around the organization.
Ensures the organization's strategy and actions align with its values, which is the strongest form of marketing and branding your organization can invest in.
“Most mission-driven organizations create metrics-driven cultures. To be clear, metrics are not inherently bad. They serve a purpose by helping organizations determine whether their mission is being met. But when metrics become the primary driver for organizational decision-making, it creates a culture where numbers are more valued than the people doing the work.” ~ Dimple D. Dhabalia, ‘Tell Me My Story: Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self’Given the strong evidence for putting our organization’s values into action, why do so many well-meaning organizations rely on marketing to tell their values over showing them?
Unfortunately, many of us have been taught to believe that investing resources toward our organization's values will leave fewer resources for impact. To build truly thriving and impactful organizations, we must relearn this.
How to put your organizational values into action:
At Just Possibilities, we offer the following guidance on how to put your organizational values into action:
Engage those closest to your work, mission, and organization in identifying your organization’s values. This includes staff at every level of your organization and the people and communities served by your work and mission.
Once you have identified your organizational values, clearly define them. Without transparently defined values, values can often be manipulated, which erodes trust.
“Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. What we cannot imagine cannot come into being. A good definition marks our starting point and lets us know where we want to end up. As we move toward our desired definition we chart the journey, creating a map.” ~ bell hooksCreate a values decision-making scorecard* as a criterion for making decisions that ensure the values are put into action, measured, and reflected in all organization decision-making and at each level within the organization.
Be brave. When exploring your organizational values, engage those closest to the work and those impacted by your work in examining and naming the systemic conditions and ways of operating that conflict with your organization’s values. Be transparent about who benefits from the established way of operating. Centering, listening to, and believing the lived expertise of those most impacted by your organizational policies and services, and recognizing these voices as partners and experts in creating new ways of working, will help you move from words into actions and create a stronger and more impactful organization.
Create new tools that operationalize the organization’s core values, this includes the strategic plan and annual operating budget, growth goals and service delivery, and employee policies, procedures, and benefits.
Keep feedback channels open. Learn, unlearn, and relearn together.
[Organizational values are] your North Star that will help you define partnerships, make decisions about hiring and funding, and check yourself to make sure you’re achieving your goals.” ~ Kathryn Finney, ‘Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business if You’re Not a Rich White Guy’ As you embark on putting your organizational values into action, we offer the following yellow flags that can often surface in this work:
Be cautious of applying your values decision-making scorecard* only to outward-facing products, services, and talking points, while exempting it from core internal culture decisions, such as the annual operating budget, the strategic plan, institutional partnerships, sustainable growth goals, and employee practices. Do the internal work to ensure value alignment at every level of your organization.
Be careful in confusing goals and mission statements with your organizational values. Goals and mission statements are important, but they are not values. Organizational values define what we’re willing to do - and often, more importantly, what we’re not willing to do - to reach our goals and achieve our mission.
Telling versus showing. Before launching an external marketing campaign or resourcing branded visuals of your organization’s values for display, prioritize resourcing internal policies and services that put the values into action.
Measuring external impact while ignoring internal data. Ensure you hold your organization to the same internal standards as you do for outward-facing metrics. The two must go hand-in-hand.
At Just Possibilities, we are passionate about helping guide organizations to put their values into action at every level, from strategic plans and the annual operating budget to internal policies, service delivery, and day-to-day decision-making. We work with organizations dedicated to the social good in their values and equity-based strategic planning, organizational assessments and recommendations, values decision-making scorecards*, and leadership and change management services.
You can learn more or schedule a free consultation call by visiting www.justpossibilities.com
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