How can you embed your values during a pandemic?

• In a time of uncertainty, organisations that focus on their values have a chance not just to survive, but thrive.

• Shaping your culture and your values should be an inclusive conversation, not a one-off project.

• Values alone aren’t enough. They need behaviours. No-one ever changed the world by writing their values on a mousemat.

• We have four lessons for successfully influencing a culture by embedding values in an organisation.  

Who needs to think about culture?

During a pandemic, everyone needs to think about culture.

Covid-19 has changed the way that we work in an extraordinarily short time. As we enter this new phase, agility and resilience in the face of uncertainty have become the new buzzwords for many leadership teams. 

Those organisations that are adapting well have focused on their values and the role their values play in helping them respond to change.

Values can be an anchor in a world of disruption and constant change.  They link your purpose – “why we do what we do” – to how you do it. They provide your community – staff, stakeholders, partners – with stability.

For organisations that focus on them, there is a real opportunity to come out of the other side of this not just surviving, but thriving.

Values alone aren’t enough. They need behaviours.

For values to deliver purpose and drive cultural change they need behaviours. 

For example, it’s easy to say one of your values is “trust”. But what does that mean? What will you do differently? How will you know it when you see it? What doesn’t it mean? Would your team all give a similar answer if asked to describe what it meant?

Behaviours are tangible and make change practical. They set expectations for everyone. They demand effort to design and implement. You need to work on this.

Aligning an organisation around its values is not something you “do” once. It is not “a project”. It’s not separate to your strategy - it’s intimately connected to it. The purpose, values and culture of your organisation are a conversation. It’s not just a conversation at leadership level, but a conversation with staff, stakeholders and partners. 

A focus on culture and values is essential, but often overlooked.

Looking forward, there are many scenarios where we think a focus on culture and values will be essential but is likely to be overlooked. Two examples are in charity mergers, and in businesses thinking about embedding ideas about purpose.

Scenario 1: Culture and values in post-merger charities

Charity mergers are really difficult, for all sorts of legal, operational, financial and people reasons. But with increased pressures on the charity sector, more mergers are likely.

In these circumstances, the role of culture is crucial. With a new organisation, you have permission to establish new values and behaviours.

Yet its influence is often overlooked in the success – or failure – of integration. Working on culture can seem less important than new systems and processes. This is a mistake. Especially if the two predecessor organisations are similar in their operations but very different in their cultures.

By being deliberate about setting the culture and values for the new organisation - and the behaviours that are expected in order to live those values - the chances of creating a thriving new organisation are much improved.

Scenario 2: Embedding purpose in business

New demands from customers for responsible business practices and genuine brand purpose are also creating space for a rethink. For an increasing number of businesses and their employees, pursuit of profit is no longer enough.

In making sure their purpose is relevant and matters to customers and other stakeholders, business can learn from charities and social progress organisations on how to really focus on values and culture.

Those that do will build deeper connections with customers, do more for the communities that they work with, attract and retain talent, and in the process, achieve greater impact beyond the bottom line.  

Four lessons for successfully embedding values that reflect your culture

In the two scenarios above, there is a clear case for a dedicated focus on culture and values, and on establishing the behaviours that will help an organisation become successful. This needs time and resource at the start, but is always a worthwhile exercise.

For any organisation thinking about its culture and values, we draw some clear lessons from our experience. 

1.    Values are easy, behaviours are difficult.

Writing your values on a mousemat never changed the world. Values need behaviours. These behaviours need to be defined clearly and in detail. They need to be practiced and visible in everything you say and do – both formally and informally. This needs time to design, and time to embed. Leaders need to engage deeply in these processes.

2.    Repeat simple messages. Repeat simple messages. 

Tell the story of the change you want.  Communicating how your values drive action and decisions helps to create a common language and experience for everyone. If you're going to talk about change, you need to demonstrate the change by tackling communications in a way that's different than you would have done before. It can't be abstract; it can’t be theoretical. Use examples. Tell stories. Run case studies. It needs to make sense to people in their daily work.

3.    Be the change. What you do is more important than what you write down.

Senior commitment to culture change is crucial. Nothing kills a cultural change project quicker than leaders acting as if the rules don’t apply to them. Be the standard you want and expect to see in others. Leadership teams should lead by example. Role models are not just found in formal positions of authority. Look for those individuals outside of the formal org chart structure that can help influence and demonstrate behaviours.

4.    Make it universal, keep it personal.

Teams of all backgrounds must feel the work they do aligns with their own values and see how it all ultimately connects together. Values also need to look and feel “real” for people. It is more than just “observe and copy me”.  There needs to be scope for individuality and diversity in the way you express them. The more the values are owned widely across the organisation - in their design and implementation - the greater the chance of success.

Values and behaviours play a critical role in shaping and changing any organisational culture. In a world of uncertainty, they are essential. They can provide stability and enable you to navigate conversations about what you do next. They offer guidelines and expectations about what is needed to deliver your purpose.

Ultimately, they make why you do what you do part of everyone’s everyday.  

We would like to hear your thoughts about these issues. We are planning activities and events over the autumn to explore them further. If you would like to get involved please get in touch with Rachel McLachlan, Associate Director, via rachel@firetail.co.uk 

To find out more about our work on culture and values, and how we have supported clients in delivering organisational change, find out more here.