Define and operationalize values to build culture.

KEY IDEAS

• Building a game changing culture involves implementing a mix of well researched principles of good business with a variety of company specific ideas and beliefs about how to reach success into day to day team activities.
• Defining and operationalizing organization values is essential to instill cultural beliefs and norms of behavior into minds and hearts.
• The process consists of conferring on meaning with the team, doing outside research, and compiling insights into a set of actionable ideas that can be implemented at all levels of the organization.

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I write a lot about building strong cultures in startups because I'm absolutely convinced that a strong culture is key to creating synergy that catapults a startup from good to great. A strong culture reduces talent churn and brings the best ideas to the surface giving the startup a kind of super charge of resilience and competitive edge. That edge can make the difference between an early stage company floating or failing so I take the process of baking it into the organizations I work with very seriously.

One chunk of the culture building process is defining and operationalizing the organization's values or guiding principles. This piece is important because the values are unique to the organization and can serve to differentiate your startup from the sea of others. This is a moment where founders can show their personality a bit and honestly it can be the seed of true innovation and vision.

In this article, I'm going to take you through my process in defining and operationalizing a value. For this example, I use one of values of Village Labs that I recently worked on. 'We're owners and we act like it.' Let's go.

Village Value: We're owners and we act like it.

Firstly, we need to define what this value means to us. Then we think about how we want to communicate it internally, to the team, and externally, to customers and the world at large. I like to hold a values meeting with founders and executives to have a conversation about how they think about each value. Then, I do some research on what ownership means in popular culture and when it is applied to business. I read articles from reputable sources and look to see what other businesses have done. I produce a document or presentation reviewing the meaning of the value, how we will communicate it internally and externally, and propose a handful of ways we might operationalize the value in our business processes.

The Values Meeting:

The meeting is absolutely critical to get stakeholders on the same page. Oftentimes, values are based on abstract concepts that each individual thinks of differently. When there is a specific conversation about ideas where everyone can contribute, those differences are exposed and there can be clarity achieved in alignment. On a higher level, when the leading team is on the same page and moving in the same direction on anything it creates a sense of cohesion and synergy which can add enthusiasm and motivation. On ground level, each manager contributing to a fundamental pillar of the company is deeply meaningful and can encourage them to communicate that to their team with authentic interest.

I run these type of meetings like a casual conversation. I ask everyone to give examples of the value in action. I make sure everyone contributes and usually have someone capture ideas on a whiteboard. I also take notes myself.

In this case we would discuss the value, 'We're owners and we act like it.' I'd get the ball rolling with the following questions:

• What does an individual that has ownership over their work do? What do they not do?
• What kind of environment produces individuals that have a sense of ownership over their work?
• What actions can we take to model ownership over our work?
• Where have you seen this in action? What businesses model this value?

Usually a lively conversation develops and lots of insights can be made. I capture the best ideas and try and keep everyone on track. Meetings with me are strictly time limited to stay focused. I usually end the meeting going around the room asking each person for their last thoughts.

Research Findings:

A couple hours of research can usually produce some valuable informal insights. These are my actual notes from my research at Village on the value, 'We're owners and we act like it.'

For high-performance organizations, there’s a strong link between employees who take ownership, having a culture of accountability, and having a high trust workplace. All three are critical to embed into the culture and values of an organization. A lack of accountability is rarely intentional. Often, it’s a result of other problems —one being unclear roles and responsibilities.

In this document I review the critical components of taking ownership in the workplace.

What does taking ownership mean?

• We take ownership when we believe that taking action is not someone else’s responsibility.
• We, as individuals, are accountable for the quality and timeliness of an outcome. We care about the outcome as an owner of the business would.
• It tells others – You can trust me to do the right thing.
• Being accountable is about being responsible for the result. A team can’t thrive without a culture of accountability, because it’s the glue that keeps everyone working together toward a collective, defined organizational mission.
• Take ownership over the problems you flag by coming to the table with solutions too.

A successful outcome of a culture where employees take ownership.

• The most productive people and those most likely to succeed are those who are proactive about finding and solving problems, and comfortable acting with increased autonomy and decreased oversight.
• Eliminate the facade of perfectionism.
• Meet marks of high-performance.
• Open communication lines by providing consistent feedback.
• More emotionally intelligent conversations and interactions.
• Builds stronger bonds within the group.
• Increased engagement among individual employees.
• Boosts employee confidence and makes them feel more accomplished.
• Boosts employee creativity.

Key elements for taking ownership.

TRUST

• Trust is confidence that your teammates are working towards the same objectives that you are.
• Trust is not micromanaging
• Low trust translates to poor productivity. If you don't trust your teammates, you spend time and energy following up and managing details you shouldn't be.
• If you don't feel trusted, you're less likely to take initiative because you anticipate criticism for your approach.
• Ownership and accountability build trust. Trust encourages employees to take ownership.
• Trust reinforces accountability because when you're trusted, you don't want to let your team down.
• Employee who are given responsibility are more likely to take responsibility.
• Fear of retaliation, a lack of trust in the organizations, or a feeling of low influence contribute most to employees not taking ownership.

CLEAR GOALS

• Team members need to know what is expected of them to feel successful.
• Address the gap between expectations and performance.
• When setting performance measures consider:

● Identifying what success looks like
● Explaining how, when and why performance is measured
● Listening to the team’s feedback on realistic, achievable goals
● Using OKRs instead of KPIs
● Recognizing and showing employee appreciation for goals met
● Scheduling weekly check-in

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HEALTHY FEEDBACK LOOPS

• ‍Building a healthy relationship between manager and direct reports. Be consistent.
• Managers can motivate team members by helping them understand the importance of their work and identifying areas to take responsibility and ownership.
• Managers should use techniques of praise, feedback, incentives and rewards to encourage engagement.
• Managers should present negative feedback constructively. Give negative feedback in a safe, private space.
• Recognize and reward good work publicly.
• Assume positive intent: At its heart, effective feedback comes from a place of
  genuinely wanting to help someone grow.
• 1-on-1 meetings should include questions such as:
  ○ Is there anything we should START doing as a team?
  ○ Would you like more or less direction from me on your work?
  ○ Do you feel you’re getting enough feedback on your work? If not, where
  would you like more feedback?
  ○ Is there an aspect of your job where you would like more help or
  coaching?
  ○ How could we improve the ways our team works together?

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RESOURCES AND AUTONOMY

• Time, budget, educational resources, and opportunities to collaborate with
  other employees.
• Offer more opportunities for training.
• Invest in employee development. Each person should have career goals and ways to develop their roles within the organization.
• Delegate decisions, not tasks.

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ENCOURAGE MENTORSHIP, NETWORKING, AND COLLABORATION

• New team members take ownership by working with others who can demonstrate working methods that model ownership and responsibility.
• A key element of an inclusive culture is making sure everyone feels like they belong and this extends to the process of taking ownership.

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Things to Avoid

MICROMANAGING

• Micromanaging discourages ownership.
• Micromanaging creates a negative cycle where taking initiative is punished because how the task was completed, or the particulars of the result are criticized.
  ○ It teaches employees that they should seek guidance and check-in often to ensure they are on the right track.

BLAME

• When an issue is caused by someone, or it’s someone’s responsibility to get something done – you want those people to have ownership over fixing the issue or making sure they get something done. However; it doesn’t mean that others can’t or shouldn’t also take ownership in helping someone fix issues.
  ○ In team environments problems are everyone’s responsibility, especially leadership.

A bad outcome of a culture where employees fail to take ownership.

• One person’s delay becomes the team’s delay. One shortfall snowballs into bigger shortfalls. When missed deadlines, lack of punctuality, and unfinished work are tolerated, they have the tendency to become the norm.
• Low team morale.
• Unclear priorities across the team.
• Decreased employee engagement.
• Unmet team and individual goals.
• Low levels of trust.
• High turnover.

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Wrapping it all Up:

After your team meeting and your research you should have a good list of actions that could be implemented in your organization's processes to bring the value alive and cement those ideas into the culture at every level. At this point in time, I would think about how the company operates and look for opportunities to tweak processes and behavior to align with what I've learned. I would create several touch points at different levels of the organization for these ideas to weave themselves into the day to day interactions of as many team members as possible.

Then I would go back to the major stakeholders and present my findings and my action steps to implementing the best ideas into our work. In different situations, there could be a necessary step of getting other managers to buy in to the changes. I would set up a campaign to implement the actions, evaluate performance, and optimize over time. The outcome, if successful, is a fully customized set of behavior and actions that bring values and guiding principles alive and create a unique and powerful culture.

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