How to Make Company Core Values More Than Just a Slogan?
This article will apply persuasive technology concepts to analyze the common pitfalls of corporate core values and propose solutions.
Recently, our company wanted to redefine its “corporate core value.” Since this rebranding of core values can greatly affect the company’s environment and culture, many employees, including myself, are curious to see the results. What kind of corporate core values can inspire employees to voluntary comply? Why are the core values of most companies regarded only as slogans?
What are a company’s core values?
Core values are the fundamental beliefs of an organization that serve as guiding principles that can dictate behavior and help people understand the difference between right and wrong.
For employees, the most relevant factor is their “performance appraisal” because the employees’ performance assessments often list core values as an evaluative dimension. Companies tend to use these evaluations as a means to force employees to understand and abide by the core values of the company. However, is there any way to inspire employees to adopt company core values spontaneously? This prompted me to consider elements of “persuasive technology.”
What is persuasive technology?
Persuasive technology is broadly defined as technology that is designed to alter user attitudes or behaviors through persuasion and social influence, but not coercion. This revolutionary technology is renowned for its capability to significantly increase the time that users spend on the Internet, from mobile games to social networks.
This behavioral model was introduced by a Stanford University Professor, BJ Fogg. His work suggested that three elements must converge simultaneously for a behavior to occur: motivation, ability, and a prompt. He argues that, when a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements must be missing. This article will discuss these three elements while exploring the reasons that corporate core values are often reduced to slogans and are typically not deeply rooted in employees’ hearts.
(1) Help employees have the ability to adopt core values
A. Use simple and clear principles: What is the company willing to give up?
Many employees believe that core values are not easily implemented because they are either too ambiguous, too lofty, or both. For example, some companies desire “speed” and “quality” to coexist, but they don’t provide any guidance on the action when those two priorities conflict. Unfortunately, as a result, core values are reduced to a collection of beautiful ideologies. When designing core values, companies should aim for simplicity, clarity, and understanding. Companies should avoid identifying too many values and prioritize one as the main value and the rest as supplemental values.
Furthermore, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg believes that the company should first consider what the company is willing to give up when identifying the company’s core values. For example, one of Facebook’s core values is “Move Fast,” and they are willing to tolerate some programming errors or defects as a result of prioritizing this value, which makes it easy for employees to understand and follow.
Despite Google’s ten core values, they also explain what they care about and what they are willing to give up in each value proposition. For example, “Focus on the user and all else will follow” can be ambiguous, but they further clarify how this should be done through means such as not selling search results and clearly marking advertisements.
B. The default setting principle: Does the assessment system inhibit the employee’s ability to prioritize core values?
What factors influence employee behavior? More often than not, the company’s assessment system is a driving factor. It is worth noting, however, that the assessment system does not necessarily align with the company’s core values. Employees will elect to engage in behaviors that are beneficial to their own performance over upholding company values if the assessment system is not appropriately aligned.
For example, the core value for a police officer in the public service system is “integrity.” Therefore, the officer may honestly fill out transcripts for each reporter in his jurisdiction and submit them. However, when the police station’s performance is assessed, he realizes that his efforts to honestly complete the transcripts led to an increase in the number of cases. As a result, the overall crime rate in the district increased, and the solved case rate dropped, which resulted in the overall poor performance of this district. In the end, the officer learned that his integrity in honestly filling out transcripts resulted in a poor assessment of his, and the station’s, performance. Moving forward, the officer decided not to file reports or transcripts as long as the case was small enough that it didn’t consume many resources or was not easily solved.
The core value is ideal, while the assessment system is reality. When the ideal and reality are in conflict, reality will typically win in the end. Therefore, if possible, the methods for assessing employee and departmental performance must be consistent with the core values of the company. Otherwise, regardless of how good the core values are, employees will disregard them in favor of their performance assessment.
(2) Give employees sufficient motivation
A. Reward and punishment mechanism: Is there a reward for adopting core values?
As previously mentioned, many companies use core values as a factor when evaluating the performance of employees. Though this is a motivating factor for employees to uphold the company’s core values, many companies still prioritize seniority when deciding promotions or raises, meaning that performance appraisals are less important. As long as employees recognize this, it will detract from their willingness to fulfill core values as well as their motivation to work hard for the company.
If employees are expected to passionately uphold company core values, there must be a more tangible reward for doing so. Conversely, there should be tangible negative repercussions for employees who violate core values.
B. Social interaction: What attitudes do the leaders and executives espouse?
Have you ever experienced a situation where what is said to be valued and what is actually valued are two different things? Though the spirit of the company’s core values influences the thinking of its employees, the reality is that their behaviors will be more influenced by substantive interactions. For example, superficially, “innovation” may be a core value of a company; however, employees may realistically realize that the rule is more “conservative” if their innovative ideas are consistently blocked by a supervisor and colleagues who don’t want to work hard. Given such social interactions, employees are cognizant of the difference between the core value of the company and the actual corporate culture.
Therefore, the company’s executives are the people who should best represent the company’s core values. As role models for the company who should genuinely care about the core values, they can encourage the right company culture.
(3) Trigger employees to implement core values
When determining the best method to trigger behavior, the missing element from the employee should first be discerned. According to different situations, Fogg categorizes the trigger points into the following three types: Sparks, Facilitator, and Signal.
A. Sparks
If what the employee lacks is motivation, then it is necessary to use trigger points that can increase motivation. For example, stories of company members who exude core values should be highlighted and praised, and those employees should receive substantial rewards like promotions, salary increases, or bonuses.
B. Facilitator
If the employee is struggling to connect core values to the project at hand, the project manager or each employee can first devise ways that the project can uphold company core values prior to starting the project.
C. Signal
If employees have sufficient motivation and ability to implement this behavior, hanging a poster in a visible area that reinforces this behavior in the company is a good signal to remind everyone of the core values.
Takeaway
To build a positive corporate culture at the workplace, it is necessary to let company members adopt the core values. However, managing a company or creating a high-quality company culture has never been an easy task.
If the company want to make core values more than just a slogan and inspire employees to adopt company core values spontaneously, then it must be deeply rooted in employees’ hearts, which means, the company should help employees to have the required abilities, motivations, and appropriate trigger points to implement it.
As employees strive to achieve a better company culture, the company must also constantly discover core values’ problems, correct them, and write more detailed and friendly regulations to help the company to become much better.
