Company Values

When startup leaders ask me about company values--when to articulate them? what they should be? how to craft them?--I always offer these two cents: 

#1 - Your values should be memorable. If you can’t recite your company’s values effortlessly you either:  

(a) have too many

(b) have articulated them using such bland or vague terms that they have
lost (or never had) meaning for you

(c) have veered so far into “aspiration” that you’ve lost touch with who you really are and what your
brand truly represents

(d) some combo of the above

The antidotes to this are: 

(1) Edit - cull the list to fewer values

(2) Re-write - describe your values  more vividly with words, phrases or even stories that are unique
to you and your team. Ask yourself: What does this value mean? And then articulate an answer. 

(3) Re-assess - It’s fine to include a value you are aiming towards, but just make sure the overall set
maintains a balance between who you are and who you’re striving to be. Otherwise, you’re just
setting yourself to undermine yourself and the values themselves. 

#2 - Your values should help you (and your team) make decisions. Values can be a powerful way to scale norms, expectations and a desired culture across an organization. But that scaling will only happen if values are repeatedly integrated into the decisions everyone makes. At first this integration must happen explicitly and be initiated by you or other company leaders: “Hmmm..let’s run this decision through the filter of our value of X….” And then over time, your teammates will start to do this in short-hand, and then eventually it will be mutually understood, but left more implicit. 

If your values aren’t routinely informing and influencing your decisions, then you run into a corrosive but common trap of undermining your explicit expectations with your real (or perceived) behavior. 

Here are some places where you might try to explicitly integrate values: 

• During group discussions when tough judgment calls need to be made

• During performance reviews

• When eliciting feedback about your impact on individuals or the team at large

• During hiring conversations (both with and about candidates)

• When sharing positive and reinforcing feedback

• During orientation, training and onboarding 

• During retros 

• During allhands or other company-wide communications 

• During company celebrations or when rewarding teammates publicly 

Bonus -- Taking action to integrate values into decisions across all areas of the company will also help with memorability. The more values are referenced, used and applied--the more obvious and easy they will be for you and anyone on your team to recall. 

Final thought: I’ve spent a lot of time in startup offices where I’ve seen the colorful list of values on the meeting room posters. I’ve seen company values painted in huge font on the office wall. Those displays are eye-catching, but insufficient: Values that are visible aren’t the same as values that are memorable or values that are explicitly integrated into decision-making.