E
Vision, Values and Behaviours
You would be hard pressed to find a company that does not have a vision of what they are about, its basic, right? The company vision sets a marker down and points the direction that we want people to follow.
Values are another basic element that we find in our companies. Our values set out the principles that we work with. You will find values like simplicity, customer focused, passionate about our people appearing in one form or another within a company’s value set.
But here’s the interesting thing … gather any group of leaders together and ask them about the values of the company and see how you get on. You may be surprised with the response you get. Some leaders will really struggle to name them all or even a few and if they struggle to name them… how can they be consciously living them?
Now let’s dig a little deeper into values. How many of us have defined the behaviours that we expect to see in our companies that will demonstrate that the values are alive and breathing in our DNA? For example, let’s take the value ‘Ignite Your Entrepreneurial Spirit’, it’s a fantastic value but unless we define the behaviours that demonstrate what we expect to see it can just be a set of words on a page. When we take the extra step and define the behaviours (as one of my clients has done) and articulate what we expect people to do i.e. be innovative, take risks and inspire others, now people know what’s expected of them.
If we are really serious about our company values we need to be able to define the behaviours we expect to see from people to demonstrate they are living the values.
We need to talk about them, values and behaviours need to appear in our recruitment processes, our performance conversations and our coaching.
Maurice Whelan,
Founder and Managing Director
Unleash Potential
