The 5 words you should ban from your values

(and what you could do instead)

Ok, this is a bit of my "I can't stand it anymore" moment. As corporate culture expert, a lot of my work is around corporate values. How to define them, how to phrase them, how to live them... And I see over and over the same mistakes in the way values are formulated.

Two categories of "values" are especially frustrating when I see them :

1. open doors
2. wishful thinking

In both cases they don’t serve the cause, the first ones because it is so obvious that you don’t need to state it in your values, the second ones because they confuse what you want to be and who you are.

Values are the “how” of your daily work, they reflect a common reality so they should be:

• Real: understood and lived by everyone in your company, acting as a filter
• Specific: other companies could do the exact same job with other values
• Opposable: if someone goes against the value, there are immediate consequences

Else just refrain or reformulate.

So here are the top five "irritating" words that you should definitely reconsider if you have them in your core values.

1/ DIVERSITY

Sorry for the defenders of gender equality and LGBTQR+ rights that would love this word to be carved into marble, but diversity is not a value, it is a result. You can’t filter candidates by “are you diverse or not?”, or fire them for not being diverse enough, can you? And you won’t achieve more diversity by saying it is your core value. You will achieve it with processes, with behaviors, with inspiring examples, with role models etc. It can be a pillar of your HR strategy, but not a value. Please.

Bonus: There are however other values you can work on, such as “openness to others”, “deep curiosity”, “genuine care”... that, if lived with authenticity, can greatly contribute to a more diverse organization.

2/ SUSTAINABILITY

We see this more and more often, and it starts getting on my nerves as we are mixing different things, mostly ESG and values. Values should apply to people. Same as diversity, can you ask someone if she is “sustainable” and promote her as a leader for it? Sustainability can be part of your purpose, sustainability can be translated into goals and practices, used for your products or your suppliers, but it is not a common value.

Additionally, sustainability is now associated with ESG strategy, so using this word can definitely be confusing.

Bonus: Here as well, if you want people to act towards more sustainability in your business, values such as “shared responsibility”, “full ownership” or “show humility and care” can be of great help.

3/ INNOVATION

Here comes wishful thinking. This is the value we most commonly see in companies…that are not innovative. You won’t see it mentioned at Apple or Google. Because these companies have amazing innovation processes and practices. They are structured to ensure lasting innovation. And they also have values, describing HOW they will innovate.

Innovation is not a value in itself, it is a process that you can set up. There are ideas pretty much everywhere as long as you know how to capture them and set them in motion. Writing innovation in your care values won't change a thing in itself. Except it might actually make innovative people suspicious.

Bonus: besides process, you can foster innovation with values such as “questioning the status quo”, “creativity without borders”, “better ask for forgiveness than for permission” etc. 

4/ INTEGRITY

Now this is the ultimate "open door" value. Just ask the opposite question: is there a single company that can live with no integrity (or at least openly saying they don’t stand for it)? No. So why would you need to waste one of your values for an obvious statement? Especially when you will be glad to learn “integrity” was part of Enron’s core values. 

Only notable exception. Patagonia also has integrity in its values. But they really mean it in their actions. After giving 1% of your sales for years and dozens of millions of dollars, would you also be giving an NGO 98% of your shares to fight climate change? At that level of commitment, you can write integrity. 

Bonus: If you can't follow the path of Patagonia, then some other suggestions: "Honesty and candor", "authenticity" can help you show you do care for doing the right thing. 

5/ CLIENT SATISFACTION

Once again open door. Who is not looking for client satisfaction ? In a world when reviews and feedback are exacerbated, you can’t escape it. And of course it is a great thing for you to communicate to your employees this eagerness to please customers. But why writing it in your values? Client satisfaction is an indicator. It stems from many factors, some of which do not depend on your people’s behaviors. You can do your best at customer support and still have unsatisfied customers because the product is shit. Then should you be fired for it? 

Bonus: “listening with compassion”, “surprise and delight those we serve”, “spread fun and love” are values can greatly contribute to client satisfaction. But only if they also apply to your people, having in mind the symmetry of attention: increasing employee satisfaction results in increased client satisfaction. 

Words do not matter that much

Ok, all the above being said, you can relax. 

We tend to put a lot of emphasis on the wording of values, but ultimately it is all about actions. What are you doing on a daily basis to live up to your values ? What are the examples, the behaviors, the leadership style, the type of interactions that display your values?

How you measure their reality, how you deal with someone not living them, how you encompass them in your processes, all this will determine whether your values are strong or not, whatever words you put around it. 

So if you need to invest time, make sure you balance words and actions.

Last but not least, keep two things in mind when writing your values:

• what you write in your values is what people will be expecting you to display in every single aspect of your organization, so make sure you are ready to live up to it
• the other way round, what you truly live within your culture and fail to encompass in the way your values are formulated might get you unnoticed by clients or candidates that shared your culture, so make sure you reflect who you are in your values

Culture always come down to walk the talk and talk the walk. This is what we call "harmony".

So where are you now ? Are there values your organization should consider changing ?

Would love to hear about it!

And of course, working on values is not that obvious, which is why the Harmonists are helping so many organizations better leverage their culture. How about discussing it together?