Episode 4: Core Values Impact Culture

Defining your company core values is one of the critical steps in building a successful workplace culture. This episodes walks leaders through a process to identify these values and help build employee support around them. 

For more information on building a successful V.A.L.U.E. Culture in the workplace, join the waitlist for the book (arrive late April 2023) at chelliephillips.com/waitlist 

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Transcript

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If workplace culture is your jam, you're in the right place. Check out this episode of culture secrets, the podcast dedicated to creating workplaces for both employees and the company's thrive. Welcome to today's podcast, I'm your host Chellie Phillips. As I was researching for my newest book culture secrets, I came across so much information about building strong people centered workplace cultures that I couldn't fit it all. In the book. I believe all successful cultures share a set of building blocks, and they are vision, accountability, leadership, the uniqueness of employees and engagement. In other words, a value culture. As a leader, setting core values for your organization is an essential step in creating a culture that reflects your vision and mission. But how do you develop a list of core values that reflects the culture you want to create? In this episode, we'll discuss how leaders can develop a list of core values that reflect that culture in the workplace and the importance of involving your whole team in the process. Let's get the conversation started and talk about vision. Your vision statement should be the foundation for your core values. They should reflect the overall purpose and goals of your organization. A strong vision provides a clear direction for the company and helps to align employees towards shared goals. As a leader it's important to develop a vision that reflects your values, and goals for the company. Start by reviewing your mission and vision statement and consider the values that are essential to achieving those goals. For example, if your vision is to be a leading innovator in your industry, you might want to include values such as creativity, risk taking, and continuous learning. Let's explore some exercises that can help you develop a vision that is aligned with the culture you want to create. One of the most effective exercises for developing that is visualization. Close your eyes and imagine what you want your company to look like in the future. Think about what your company stands for and what values it represents. Consider how your company can create a positive impact on society. Once you have a clear picture of your vision, write it down and share it with your team. This exercise can help create a shared vision that everyone can work towards. Another useful exercise for creating a vision is a SWOT analysis. This involves identifying your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. By analyzing these factors, you can identify areas for improvement, and determine the direction you want your company to take. us the results of your SWOT analysis develop a vision that reflects your company's strengths, and addresses its weaknesses. This exercise can also help to create shared understanding of the challenges the company may be facing right now. Finally, brainstorming is a great exercise for developing provision. Gather your team and ask them to share their ideas about what they think the company should be like in the future. Encourage them to think big to share any ideas they have, no matter how crazy they may see. This exercise can lead to a lot of creative ideas and can help to create a shared vision for the company. It can also help to create a sense of collaboration and shared ownership of the company's vision. Next is a time to involve your team. As a leader, it's important to set values for your organizations that reflect the culture you want to create. However, the values that you choose should not be imposed on your employees from the top down. Involving employees and setting company values can lead to more buy in and commitment to these values. It's important to involve your team in the process of developing core values. This can help ensure that the values you choose are aligned with the needs and aspirations of your employees. When employees are involved in the process of setting up the values. They feel more invested in these values, and they're more likely to live them out in their daily work. Additionally, involving employees in the process can help to ensure that the values are aligned with the organization's goals and the needs of the employees. There are many ways to involve employees in the process of setting values. One approach is to create a values committee made up employees from across the organization. The committee can be tasked with identifying the values that are the most important to the organization, and development plan for how these values can be implemented and reinforced. Let's look at a few more ways you can work this discussion into your next workshop or staff meeting. One way to begin identifying core values is through the one word activity. In this activity, each team member is giving a few minutes to think of one word that represents the team and the values they want to embody. This activity allows each team member to think about what is important to them and what they believe the team should prioritize. Once everyone has come up with their word, take some time to share and discuss the words you may find that some words are similar and can be combined or that some words can be expanded upon to create a more specific core value. Another activity that can be used to help identify core values is the storytelling activity and In this activity, each team member shares a personal story about a time they experienced a situation where a particular value was important to them. For example, if one of the core values is teamwork, a team member may share a story about a time they worked on a project with a team, and how the team's collaboration was crucial for the success. This activity allows team members to connect personal experiences to core values, and it helps the team identify values that are important to them. The last activity is a team survey activity. In this activity, each team member is given a survey to ask questions about the team's current culture, and what values are important to them. This activity allows team members to reflect on their own experience on the team and identify areas where the team can improve. It can also help the team leader understand what values are important to each team member, and what values the team should prioritize. The reason this work is simple, you're asking them what they believe are essential values for the organization, and why they believe these values are important that shows you value their input. Remember, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, look to other successful organizations and see what's working for them. In my book culture secrets, I share stories from a number of successful companies of all sizes and from all industries. While the cultures all contained some of the same core attributes. Each one reflects the uniqueness of the company it lives in. Take inspiration from other successful organizations that have values aligned with the culture you want to create, study their core values and identify those that are most relevant to your organization. You can also look to your industry or sector for guidance on the values that are most important to the success of your company. Now as to dedicate time to identify the behaviors that reflect your values. These are the specific behaviors that you want employees to model in their day to day work life values are only meaningful if they are lived out in the workplace. Identify the specific behaviors that reflect each of your core values. For example, if one of your core values is accountability, you might identify behaviors such as taking ownership and mistakes, following through on commitments and being open to feedback. It's important you keep your core values simple, your core values should be easy to remember and communicate. Avoid creating a long list of values that are difficult to remember or implement. Aim to identify three to five core values that are essential to your organization's success. Once you've identified your core values, test them by using them to make decisions in your organization. Ask yourself if these values are reflected in your hiring practices, your decision making processes, and in the way that you reward and recognize your employees. Now let's recap what we've talked about before you go. Developing a list of core values that reflects the culture you want to create in the workplace takes time and effort. By starting with your vision involving your team. Looking to other successful organizations, identifying behaviors, keeping it simple and testing your values, you can create a list of core values that reflects your organization's goals and aspirations. These values will serve as a guide for decision making and will help to create a positive and productive culture in your workplace. Involving employees and setting company values is an important step in providing a positive and productive culture. By giving employees a voice in the process, they become more invested in the values and are more likely to live them out in their daily work. Thanks for listening today's episode. I hope you found this podcast informative and useful. If you have any questions or comment, please feel free to reach out to me. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe, drop me a rating and share a link with a friend. If you want to learn more or perhaps have me come lead a workshop or discussion with your organization. Visit my website at WWW dot Chellie phillips.com. That's C H E L L I E P h i ll IPs. You can also get on the waitlist for the culture secret book. It's going to be arriving in late April 2023. It contains even more tips and strategies for building a strong workplace culture. Simply go to Chellie phillips.com backslash waitlist and fill out the information and you'll be notified as soon as the book is available at major retailers. Remember, building a value culture is your competitive advantage and the backbone of any successful organization.