Values are the cornerstone of culture and how culture is put into practice. They need to be collectively shared, non-negotiable, and clearly defined. Values should be couched in behavioral terms; they should become the norms that drive behavior and, in turn, get results. And they work best if they are easy to remember and ingrained into everyday behavior!
As with your Purpose and Vision, a collaborative Values creation process helps ensure buy-in throughout the company. As we started our culture transformation at Bridgestone, we held a meeting with the top 150 leaders in the company. We talked about who we wanted to be, what our behaviors were now, and what about those behaviors were not living up to who we wanted to be. We wrote all this down on flip charts and Post-it notes.
The Rules of the Road
Then, we took all this information and created the values everyone at Bridgestone would abide by: the Rules of the Road. We wrote the Rules of the Road down on a big flip chart and had every single one of those 150 people come up and sign it as a symbolic gesture that they agreed to adhere to these values we had created together. This little ritual made sure everyone knew they were an integral part of the creation of these values and underlined the importance of adhering to them.
While it is often impractical to include this many people in the creation process, you can still involve people in the conversation. At Barge, instead of presenting the codified values to management as a done deal, we said, “We went offsite and spent some time coming up with these values for our company. Now we want to know: What do you think? How do you think these work for our company and people?” This gave our managers a sense of involvement and ownership that created buy-in.
Ensuring all employees are aligned with your values is the only way to create a truly ingrained culture throughout your company. For example, at Bridgestone, we expected managers to meet with their employees at least three times a year. At each meeting, they should discuss the values and give feedback on how their team is living those values using a rating system. This helped foster productive conversations, with the goal of helping people be their best selves and live the values of the company.
Reinforcing Values Through Recognition
One of the best ways to instill and reinforce values is through recognition. For instance, through a peer recognition system like the one we had at Barge, called the CARES Spotlight. Throughout the quarter, anyone in the company could nominate somebody to be recognized for embodying one of our values. Everyone could see these nominations, so everyone could recognize their peers and teach each other what the values look like in action. Then, once a quarter, we picked a winner via a random draw and gifted them a small reward and a little CARES Spotlight plaque. We would display both the winner and the nominees on our digital news program that ran on TV screens throughout the offices, with their name, picture, what value they were being recognized for, and what they did to earn that recognition.
This made the values real for everyone. They weren’t just written on a poster in the conference room or break room. It was clear we were taking the values seriously because we were spending all this time and energy on reinforcing them. People got excited because they recognized that the company really believed in something greater. They were part of something they could believe in and emotionally invest in.
Making Values Real is Worth It
It is hard to overstate the impact of making the values real and alive for everyone in your company. When you succeed, it is not just top-down; it’s also bottom-up. If people are not behaving in ways that align with the values, the employees will stand up and say, “No, that’s not okay. They’re not aligning how they do their work with the values we stand for.” Your employees will start to hold each other accountable.