Where Do Corporate Values Come From?

A recent discussion about what changes when an employee becomes a manager started me thinking about an earlier question. Long before we talk about what a new manager needs to learn, perhaps we need to look at how that person came to be selected for leadership in the first place. What did the organisation know about how this person treated others, exercised authority and handled disagreement? Was the decision based mainly on technical competence and the ability to produce results? And what part, if any, did the organisation’s stated values play?

Many organisations have a vision, a mission and a values statement. They are published on websites, in strategic plans and sometimes displayed prominently in the workplace. I have been involved in enough values work to know that the words themselves tell us very little. We need to know how they were developed, whose values they reflect and what happens to them once the launch event is over.

Many years ago, when I was relatively new to South African Breweries, the company decided to develop a vision, mission and values statement. The senior leadership went off on what was known as a bosberaad, an Afrikaans term for a conference or planning session held in the African bushveld. They returned with an impressive vision and mission and a “six-pack” of values - this being a beer company, after all.

A grand launch was arranged at a huge conference centre. The company had too many employees to fit into the room, so representatives of various employee groups were invited, including union shop stewards and a selection of salaried staff. I worked in the head office human resources department and was responsible for building positive relationships with the unions, so I was there.

People wanted to know how a group of privileged white men could decide what the culture of the company was, or should be, without speaking to the people who worked in it. From their perspective, this was another marketing exercise: management had packaged its values and was now trying to sell them to employees who were dissatisfied with their pay and faced tough working conditions. The attractive presentation could not conceal the fact that the people in the room were being asked to accept someone else’s version of their organisation.

That launch became a watershed moment for the consultants who were helping the company change. They were instructed to design and carry out an extensive consultation with employees across all eleven breweries and the many satellite depots. The process eventually produced ten values. Those values had credibility because employees had participated in developing them. They remained part of the company for a long time and supported an ambitious mission: To be among the top five breweries in the world by any measure by the year 2000.

We achieved that mission ahead of schedule.

I would like to be able to say that the consultation transformed the culture at every level. It didn’t. The old boys’ network continued. Informal relationships among white male managers still carried influence, and the familiar social patterns around drinking, golf and company-sponsored fishing trips remained. The consultation gave the values legitimacy, but legitimacy did not guarantee that everyone -particularly those who already held power - had internalised them.

The consultation was real. Employees were heard, and the resulting values had far greater credibility than the original six-pack devised in the bushveld. The business achievement was also real. At the same time, longstanding patterns of access, privilege and influence continued despite the new values.

Ironic case in point: A few years later one of the consultants who had designed and conducted the extensive consulting work was appointed as the new HR Director. There was a convergence. The Board wanted a committed values advocate in a key position. But he had also participated in many junkets open only to the white men who were running the show.

They managed to legitimise the new values +

retain the old boys club solidarity.

Ironic on several levels: he was a friend of mine although my age and gender mitigated against club membership.

This becomes particularly important when managers are recruited or promoted.

They tell us little, however, about how that person will use authority. Selection processes often explore what candidates have achieved without looking closely enough at how they achieved it. How did they respond to criticism? How did they treat people whose work carried less status? What happened when someone disagreed with them? Did they share information and credit? Were people around them able to grow, or did success depend on keeping the manager at the centre of everything?

An internal promotion should make this easier to assess because the evidence is already present in the organisation. Colleagues and employees have experienced the candidate’s way of managing relationships and dealing with pressure. They know if the person listens, behaves fairly and takes responsibility for mistakes. They may also know that the candidate produces impressive results while leaving resentment, silence or damaged relationships behind.

Informal networks complicate the picture further. There is nothing wrong with colleagues playing golf, fishing or enjoying a drink together. Relationships naturally develop through shared interests. Problems arise when those social relationships influence access to information, mentoring, high-profile assignments and promotion. Some employees become well known to senior leaders over years of informal contact. Their strengths are noticed, their mistakes are understood in context and their ambitions are encouraged. Others arrive at the formal selection process without that accumulated familiarity.

The people left outside these networks

may be every bit as capable.

They may have caregiving responsibilities that prevent them from socialising after work. They may have no interest in golf, fishing or drinking. Some may not have been invited. By the time a management position is advertised, one candidate may already feel like the natural choice. Everyone can then participate in a formally fair selection process without recognising how unevenly access and opportunity have been distributed along the way.

These decisions feed the culture whether leaders consciously intend them to or not.

Culture grows from what people experience every day.

Whose voice carries weight, who gets a second chance, who is encouraged to advance, which behaviour is rewarded and what everyone has learned to overlook? Employees compare those experiences with the values on the wall and draw their own conclusions.

A credible values statement can provide a shared language and a standard against which decisions and behaviour can be examined. Consultation can give it roots in the experience of the organisation. From there, its credibility has to be renewed each time someone is hired, promoted, rewarded or protected from the consequences of their behaviour. It also depends on a willingness to examine the informal relationships through which some people become visible and others remain on the margins.

The South African Breweries experience taught me that organisations can do serious, inclusive values work and still leave important parts of the prevailing culture untouched. Consultation matters enormously, but it cannot carry the whole burden.

The more difficult work begins afterward, in the choices made about people, power and whose behaviour will come to represent the organisation.

What are the day-to-day interactions between employees? What about between employees and clients or members of the public? Are the values evident in those interactions? How would you know? Is it measurable? (Yes, it is.) Is anyone measuring it? (Some, but few and far between.)

My view is also that values shift and change as the years go by. A new generation of employees join. They don’t necessarily experience the world and the meaning of work the same way the “old guard” does. Values need renewal in the same way as married couples find value in renewing their vows. It doesn’t mean automatically adopting a new set of values and incurring all those rebranding costs. It does mean that the conversation takes place at all levels – What are they? What do they mean? Are they still relevant? Should some be added/subtracted/reframed?

How would you decide when to open up this values conversation again? What is your planning cycle? What is happening in your marketplace? How has your employee profile changed as regards Diversity and Inclusion? Immigration? Look at those and then decide. It really need not be that complicated or expensive. It starts with recognising the value of collectively exploring and refreshing they way we work together.