5 Ways Your Company Values Help Your Organization Today
What are they again? Those things the leaders talk about in their latest video blogs, and which are now up on the wall…. Yes, those company values!
Are you able to recite them all and apply them to the purpose of your business and your role within it? Do they promote consistency within the organization, and ensure clarity through changing times?
At Think Productive Australia, we worked as a team to review what underpins what we do. We looked at what’s important to us and how these translate to our personal values. This is what we came up with:
We’ve found that right now, more than ever, our values and our mission are helping to stop dragging us into irrelevant topics, or risk compromising our identity. Or even leading us on a merry dance as the world starts to adjust to these changing times, and starts thinking about what the other side will look like.
These are the five ways your company values can help your organization today:
Decision-Making
Which decisions best reflect your values? Maybe you are wondering what your marketing message should be? How you are best positioned to protect your “bottom line” or how your values can help you secure funding? Even decisions around what changes will affect your business/organization after this period of uncertainty.
In times of chaos and uncertainty there is a risk that rash, shallow decisions will be made. But your values are what grounds you. They help you avoid becoming a victim to a momentum that drives you in all sorts of strange directions.
Wellbeing
If your teams are working remotely you can start your meetings, or daily huddle, with every individual applying a value to their mood that day. They can share some celebrations of how your values have been demonstrated in their work. We have a value which is “Human, Not Superhero”. If one of our team has to be offline to support their child’s home schooling, that value helps them to be at peace with their decision.
Communication
What message are you sharing with your customers at the moment? Do you understand what they need? Or what they want to hear from you? How do your values influence you to say and do the right thing? For us, it is time to invest in our value “Trust and Kindness are our Rocket Fuel”. We recognize that leaders are swamped by a flurry of change. Team members have been unleashed into the unknown of home working. We decided to help them with our special 60 min webinars on ‘The Productivity Ninja Guide to Working From Home‘, and we are delighted to have been able to help hundreds of people already, in Canada and across the globe.
Strategy
I think is fair to assume that lots of businesses are going through the equivalent of a factory reset at the moment. Whether that is because of commercial needs, supply chain accessibility or technical limitations. So, how are these values going to help drive the direction of your organization? If they don’t, are they the right values?
Any brave change in your organization’s direction will involve losing legacy ways of working. These are often part of the DNA of the organization. You cannot just implement a new system and expect it to work. This is where our value, “Psychology Before Technology”, comes to the fore. Do not expect things just to change. It takes effort.
You
Consider you as a leader, a partner, an employee, a manager – whatever your role is. How connected are you with your company values? Are they driving your personal purpose? Do you engage with the purpose of your organization? What decisions do you need to make personally? At Think Productive North America we have to be confident in what the Think Productive brand stands for in order to truly adhere to our value “We Walk Our Talk”.
Maybe you want to take this further? Think about the vision and mission of your business. Our Vision here at Think Productive North America is “A world where work is full of purpose, clarity and focus (and where no one dreads Monday mornings)”. So we practice our agile ninja skills so we are ready to meet the current and future needs of our clients.
And what about you? Are you confident that your organization values support you and your teams?