This week's quick thought is about corporate values.
I've heard many times from Pamper that 'your mission is why you work, and your values are how you work.' That was recently reinforced as I read an article about Netflix for a post I'm working on.
Netflix has a unique corporate culture. To reinforce that culture, they have a presentation that lays out their cultural maxims. The first one is 'Values are what we Value.'
Anyone who has sat in a Business 101 class knows about 'mission, vision, values' - it's constantly repeated and ingrained in your head. So most companies have their 'values' listed somewhere. But the point is not to 'have values' - the point is to 'work by those values.'
Netflix puts a fine point on this. From their presentation:
'Many companies have nice sounding value statements displayed in the lobby, such as:
Integrity, Communication, Respect, Excellence.
Enron - whose leaders went to jail, and which went bankrupt from fraud - had these values displayed in their lobby:
Integrity, Communication, Respect, Excellence.'
Simply having 'values' means zip. They mean nothing unless your company - your culture - actually values those concepts and lives by them. Anyone can list a bunch of virtues on a poster and hang them up. The real challenge is integrating them into your culture. Until you do, they are just words on the wall.
Take stock of your company. Do your people work by your values? More importantly: does your leadership value your values? Do YOU value your values? It's the difference between Netflix and Enron.
And that's your quick thought for the day. Connect with us!