Best Practice January: "Corporate Values"

Describing the behavior necessary to deliver on the strategic targets of the organization (examples are innovative, entrepreneurial, truthful, etc.)

Organizations are like people: they have core values. Values provide excellent guidance on the journey from A to B, as long as they are translated into something actionable, or used as value statements (see ‘Way of Working’). These core or corporate values are easy to change on paper but very hard to change in reality, since they embody the sum of all the people working in that organization.

Most organizations will have a mix of three to five values, also covering the different interests of the organization’s stakeholders: employees, customers, shareholders and society. The best way to change the organization’s values is to think hard about what the change (from A to B) means in terms of aspired values. From that point onwards, it will become clear what these values are, and – later on, by making them actionable – what they really mean in every part of the company.

In case you are curious on where to find the mindset design phase (and thus this best practice) within our culture transformation cycle, check here.