Hey, it's Laura and Jason.
Welcome to Issue #11 of The Weekly UNLOK, where human potential meets organizational performance.
"WHEN VALUES ARE WALL DECOR"
ON PROCESS: JASON
Most organizations have their values on the wall in pretty fonts and nice graphics.
Integrity. Collaboration. Innovation. Customer Focus. Accountability.
Right there for all to see.
But ask five people in the building to list them and you’ll often get somewhere between blank stares and two out of five.
And for those who can name all five, do they know what living each looks like, and do they believe the organization truly follows them?
I’ve sat in enough leadership meetings to see how the words end up on the wall with unanimous agreement, curated and word smithed with exceptional care.
The easy part to forget… what happens after they go on the wall?
How do the values we spent so much time carefully selecting actually make a difference?
The answer is in truly operationalizing them, making your values be part of the real infrastructure of your organization.
Lets pick on a common value for a moment… “Integrity”.
In decisions large and small, visible and invisible, is Integrity being lived within your organization in the way you had in mind when you put it on the wall?
That’s where the rubber hits the road. When your values show up consistently in the daily decisions and operating norms.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself within your own organization:
- Have we defined what each value truly means to our organization, and what good looks like when its being lived as intended?
- Have we incorporated our values into our hiring, development, promoting, and termination processes?
- Are our values consistently lived and enforced, and what happens when they’re not?
What you do after the values go on the wall tell people everything about your organization.
Operationalizing them isn’t a nice to have, its critical if you want to avoid them being forgettable wall adornments at best, and harmful hypocrisy at worst.
ON PEOPLE: LAURA
I remember sitting across from a Director of Marketing a few months back, telling me about her company culture…
I know, I know, culture. That fluffy word that doesn’t show up cleanly on the P&L.
What she told me is that she stopped speaking up in meetings months ago.
She still had all of the ideas, but in contrast to the company’s stated value of “Collaboration”, the unstated rule was: don’t disagree with the person who signs your review.
Maybe you know what I mean… those times you’ve caught yourself holding back in a meeting and telling yourself you’re being “diplomatic”, when really you’ve learned that the value on the wall doesn’t match the reality of the room.
This is more common than you think, especially in organizations who haven’t built the infrastructure to support their stated values.
The gap between what’s on the wall and what actually happens in your environment will compound and invisibly impact your P&L.
People will hold back, people will leave, growth will stall, problems will be hidden, poor promotions will be made, I could go on and on… but the cost is real.
I’ve listened to thousand of these stories! I was the person your best person called when they were beyond frustrated with your environment and ready to leave.
And by the way….a value doesn’t become real until it costs someone something.
When it’s enforced the same way for the founder’s favorite as it is for the person who just started, people notice that. They sense the integrity, they feel more connected.
But when it bends for whoever has the most leverage? Like….the rainmaker that always gets an excuse for bad behavior?
Well, people notice that too. And it impacts the level of commitment they bring to your organization…way more than you want to know.
Here’s what I want to leave you with…
Behind most employee disengagement, you won’t find apathy. You’ll find a hundred small proof points that the rules only apply to some of the people, some of the time.
YOUR TURN
Inner Game: Think of the last time you didn't say the true thing in a meeting because you'd learned, somewhere along the way, that the stated values wouldn't actually protect you. What did you tell yourself instead?
Outer Game: Pull your last three promotion decisions. Would the people who got promoted pass a real test on whether they lived your stated values, not just whether they hit their numbers?
We’re here for the ripple effect ✨,
Laura & Jason
P.S. - Have a story to tell? Reply back and let us know. We're collecting more evidence from those who have lived it.
BEFORE YOU GO: HOW WE CAN HELP
FOR COMPANIES: The gap between your posted values and your promoted behaviors isn't a culture problem, it's a performance problem with a measurable cost. Book a strategy call.
OR... [Take the free self-assessment →]
FOR INDIVIDUALS: Laura works personally with a small number of leaders navigating exactly this kind of misalignment. Book an activation session and let’s get into it.