Change has always been a part of life. Nothing new here. Just like death and taxes, you can count on change.
But the difference today is the accelerated rate of change and the sense of drowning that many of us feel in this unpredictable, unstable world we live in. When employees feel or sense instability, productivity and creativity take a nose dive, resulting in a big financial impact on the business.
Just take a typical day in any of our lives. We wake up. One of the kids is sick. There is a two-hour school delay. The shower doesn’t work. There’s no milk. The dog “messed” his bed. Our teenager is still in bed and classes start in five minutes. And we haven’t even left for work yet!
Now we get in the car, wrestle traffic, and finally get to work. We turn on our computer to find 40 emails from last night. Three voicemails from customers who need immediate attention. Two people from production called in sick. And it’s not even 8 a.m. yet! How does anyone function, let alone contribute or thrive, in that environment?
Bottom line is most of us do poorly. That’s why results from surveys of “How well are your employees engaged?” come in at less than 30 percent engaged. It’s not because they don’t care. It’s because of the chaos in their lives, and the chaos at work just contributes more fuel to the fire.
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So what do you do as an employer to support your employees, to give them the tools to be more productive and effective in the midst of all this chaos? Taking on the challenge of constant, churning, relentless change necessitates a response that does NOT change – a changeless core. These are your company core values.
What are core values? They are a handful of “rules” that your company has declared are your standards of behavior, your rails for decision making, and how you will treat one another, your customers, and other stakeholders in your business. They remain constant. They are the changeless core that gives your people the capacity to deal with dynamic change.
The game of business has changed. What used to be won by the biggest is now won by the fastest. Everyone is moving at an accelerated pace. You can’t be everywhere your people are to help them, so how are they supposed to make the right decisions in the chaos of all the change? By turning to your core values! That handful of rules that give people direction.
Core values have three distinct characteristics.
- You would take a financial hit if necessary to maintain the integrity of a core value
- You would fire someone for consistently and blatantly breaking a core value
- They are alive in the organization today
I always tell my clients, “Core values aren’t right or wrong. They are just yours. If people don’t like them, no problem, but they can’t play on your team.” It’s that simple. Teams don’t break down because of lack of skill; teams break down because there is a misalignment of core values. You can teach skills. Either people come up to speed on skills, or you, as a manager, need to “free up their future,” and let them find somewhere else to work.
However, it is VERY difficult to teach values to employees. Some people are willing to do the work to change their behavior and align with the core values (this takes a big commitment by the employee and a commitment by someone to coach and support them). But for most, values are what people bring to the table. Values are the result of their upbringing and experiences.
When there is a breakdown of core values in the organization, EVERYONE knows. And when leadership tolerates consistent violation of the core values, it is THAT action by leadership that is the poison that slowly kills teams. It eats up culture. People either leave, or worse, they quit and stay. And recruiting A-talent becomes nearly impossible. If they do come, they won’t stay long.
You need to get crystal clear on your core values as an organization, and hire people who align to them. Again, core values are not right or wrong, they are just yours. When you get a team completely aligned around your core values, stress diminishes, people will have a sense of safety and stability, and creativity and productivity will explode.
How do keep core values alive in your organization? You have to reinforce them every day in your organization. You have to catch people living them and tell them. You have to model them. You have to make the tough decisions based on your core values.
The most important thing about making core values real is they must be alive in your organization today. People sense hypocrisy immediately and you will lose all credibility going forward if you try to “convince” people of your core values. You can’t fake this stuff.
When you get a team of people who are aligned around a common set of values, a common purpose, and a compelling vision, the leadership work is nearly done. This is the type of team that can take on anything and win.
Tom Garrity is the Managing Partner of Compass Point Consulting, Concannon Miller's business consulting partner. If you would like more information on this topic, Tom can be reached at 610‐336‐0514 or tgarrity@compasspt.com.
