It’s easy to say it, it’s harder to live it.

Last time you had a problem working with someone, was it really about their output, or was it about their behaviour and how they did the work? Or the person you love working with, I’m sure they were great at their job but also probably matched your personal values in how you did the work too!

First of all, if you are just going to write the value down on a (virtual) wall and not use them to hire, build and manage the team, you’ll soon realise you’re doing more harm than good.

• You have company values - whether you write them down or not - and painting values on a wall that you don’t live by will cause problems for your culture.

• How do you know when to hire or fire someone (all other things being equal)? Values!

• How do you explain to someone how the work gets done here? With values (and associated behaviours)

• How do you know that your team members will represent you as you intended? Values!

How you define them matters though… ask your team (even if it’s just 2 of you right now)

• The first thing I do when I come into any new organisation is to ask every employee what behaviours are rewarded & recognised in the business.

• The answers to this question ☝️is the values you are living today, intentionally or not.

• Compile them, review them and narrow them down - never have more than 5 of them, because they don’t get remembered and can conflict each other

• Next, reflect if these are things you want to continue and do these behaviours help support your company goals in the short to mid-term?

• They can also be slightly aspirational; if it’s not something happening today it can be added but need to consider how you will live and embed this in the business (see next point, most importantly)

• Finally, as the founder, do these values Reflect YOU? If you can’t personally live them every day, then throw them out, now!

Other things to consider:

• What is the future of the business you want to build?

• e.g. are you building remote first, then you likely need a value around communication (how often and where), etc.

• Values don’t need to be static! It’s okay for them to change.

• Just like new hires, what serves you 0-1 is not the same as 1-10 and 10-100… the only constant is change in a start up!

• Think about why you are doing this. If you aren’t going to make your values part of how you hire - fire - promote - manage - offer feedback… then don’t bother. Intentionalising company values is about action - it’s not a gimmick or a vanity exercise

• Regardless of whether you are proactive about your values or not - your company has a set of values that exist based on the shared personal values of the diverse (hopefully) humans you have hired, but more importantly based on what you reward & recognise as a leader every single day! No amount of fancy words on the wall is going to make a difference if YOU aren’t living these values first!

So, if you are convinced you need company values, then let’s talk about how we build those values into everything you do in your business.

Turn your values (or values statements) into clear statements of behaviours

Company values are often written in aspirational language but “transparency” as a value doesn’t tell me HOW to work within this business.

Behaviours like:

• Sharing successes and failures for shared learning

• Regularly seeking out and providing feedback

• Sharing your expertise across the business

Are easy for me as an employee to emulate!

You likely have lots of examples of what these behaviours are because when you asked your team what behaviours were recognised & rewarded in the business, they told you stories or provided examples that you used to build the values in the first place.

Make it easy for new, and current team members, to understand what ‘good’ looks like and replicate it.

Now use them everywhere

• Share your company values publicly, so potential candidates know what is expected of them if they join the team

• Use behaviour based questions to assess candidates against your company values in the hiring process (make sure they are all asked the same questions)

• Build your recognition programme to focus on values based behaviours

• Measure the behaviours linked to your company values, along with job performance, in reviews and development conversations

• Values and expected behaviours make it so much easier to have the how work gets done conversations in performance management that can be very difficult when it could otherwise feel like a personal attack. When the behaviour expectations are clear to everyone, then it’s not a personal challenge!

• As you scale, consider values along with job performance, in any promotion and growth decisions.

• Keep checking in with the team, do they feel values are being lived within the business or is it time to review, revise or simply re-instil them again for your new reality?