The Clarity Gap

If your organization values values don’t get caught in a clarity gap

I often see companies with clearly articulated values that name what is important to them. They’ll often tout these values in the interview process, or in PR, or bring them up in presentations or conversations.

Which is great, I think it’s all good, I’ve seen multiple companies even paint them on the wall in their office. Cool.

What many organizations don’t do is clarify how they are going to operationalize those values. How should those values be used in the day-to-day work? When it comes to making decisions, which values are prioritized? What happens if a value is in conflict with a workplace imperative? Can any of your values be weaponized?

This is another place where group agreements are your friend. A group agreement is a series of guidelines that are agreed upon at the beginning of a process, or during the formation of a new group. A new leadership team should go through a group agreements exercise to determine how they want to communicate and work. Agreements can cover everything from confidentiality to cussing, whether people appreciate or dislike being interrupted, how and if they want to use agendas and are we expected to respond to messages after hours.

How and where you use values should be part of group agreements. Let’s say an organization has a value of compassion. Because I don’t want to use any values I’ve encountered in my coaching work, I’m going to use this one from a post about Corporate Values at Achievers.com.

“Compassion: Actively understanding and empathizing with the experiences and challenges of others, without judgement or assumptions. Cultivating a supportive environment which means active listening, offering support when needed, and celebrating successes together. Prioritizing compassion fosters a sense of belonging leading to reduced stress, improved wellbeing and ultimately employee retention.”

Sounds good, right? But without clarity, it could be interpreted different ways by different people. Does this value mean you can’t put a worker who doesn’t do his job well on a performance improvement plan or PIP? Does active listening mean taking the time to hear and validate the experience of others, or does it mean that any employee can take over a team meeting to air their grievances?

The value is fine. I can see multiple ways in which this could be used within an organization that would be positive and beneficial for all. But there are potential risks. I wrote last week about White Women’s Tears. This value of compassion could also be weaponized against marginalized communities if a white woman starts crying because she’s been called out on microaggressions. If the white HR lead thinks that active listening without judgement means honoring the white woman’s hurt feelings even though her behavior was damaging to her Black colleague that’s a clarity gap that can damage the organization.

Of course, we all know that many companies don’t pay attention to their values, or their mission statement. They pay some consultant to help them develop them and then that content sits in a presentation on some server, never to see the light of day again outside of recruitment or maybe marketing.

But many places care about their values, and want them to be vital and foundational to culture. If you are one of those places, you should take the time to get curious.

Ask five people, at different levels of your organization (not executives), if they can name three of the company’s values, without referencing any place they are listed.

Ask them how and if they see the values showing up in day-to-day work – it could be hiring, marketing, product development, anything.

If you’re faced with blank stares, or none of the five people you ask can list any of your values then you know that the values aren’t alive. Something’s been lost in translation. This doesn’t mean you have to redo them. If they are resonant to leadership, you don’t need to spend a bunch of money or time to start over.

Let people know what the values are, and why they are important to you. Then get clear about how they actually work. How do the values impact decision making, meeting behavior, hiring and firing, work life balance, innovation, creativity – in short, whatever is important to your organization?

Values can be important cultural navigation tools. But just like an actual compass, they won’t be of much use if you don’t take them out of the drawer and use them effectively.