Making the Case for Cultivating Shared Values in the Workplace

Whether you are launching a new endeavor or want to improve the culture within your organization, here are some ideas to infuse shared values into your business and get employee buy-in.

The Link Between High-Performing Organizations and Shared Values

Many business owners launch with a goal of not only building a successful business, but building their business with a particular organizational culture in mind. These values often arose from their own positive and negative experiences in other companies, with a determination to provide an environment for optimal employee productivity and happiness.

An organization-wide tendency to adhere to high ethical standards is one of the four key characteristics of high-performing organizations identified by the AMA (American Management Association). Here are some of the benefits for organizations that infuse shared values into the culture, and three ways to do so.

Shared Values Do More than Make People Feel Good

While an obvious benefit of cultivating an organization culture with positive shared values is because it feels better to work (or shop) there, making people feel good is not the only – or best – reason to identify the values you want to permeate your business.

Organizational Culture and Shared Values

Organizational culture is reflected by an individual employee (or team’s) assumptions, interpretation and consequent actions of what the most appropriate behaviors are for various situations in the workplace, or in the course of their work. The extent to which the values and vision of an organization are left up to individual interpretation or are more objectively identified and defined will lead either to a widely diverse or to a more cohesive and consistent representation.

Identifying shared values and creating mechanisms for infusing them into the mind set of employees through education, training and accountability is a vital part of creating a strong culture, especially as the organization grows and new members are assimilated or as new business units are added.

5 Shared Values that Underlie Organizational Culture in a High-Performing Business

In a 2007 study, the AMA identified characteristics common to high performing organizations, one of which was an increased likelihood of members adhering to high ethical standards, at every level in the organization.  For most business leaders, this represents an obvious benefit, making it more likely that employees will:

• adhere to company policies
• honor the company’s expressed customer service promises
• be honest in dealings with the customer, with the employer, and with co-workers

The benefits for businesses that successfully cultivate shared values can be found throughout the organization, and are reflected in everything from individual and team performance to leadership and how employees treat customers and one another; such as:

• Leaders who are clear, fair, and talent-oriented.

When leaders are more likely to reward talent and effort, members are more likely to perform accordingly, making pursuit of business or business unit goals and professional development a shared value in the organization.

• Employees who are more likely to think the organization is a “good place to work.”

Employees who value the work environment provided for them are more likely to contribute to upholding the environment. This type of shared value results in continuity of culture.

• Employees who are ready to meet new challenges and committed to innovation.

When employees collectively value problem solving and innovation, they create a continuous improvement mindset conducive to helping the organization overcome challenges and best competitors.

• Business leaders superior in clarifying performance measure, training people and enabling them to do the work (and work well together).

When an organization defines the path to success in the workplace and equips its members to get there, members are very likely to develop a corresponding loyalty to the organization. Like the customer relationship, the employee relationship is often a mirror image, in that people will rarely give more to the relationship than the organization is (first) willing to invest.

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