How they create an instant, emotional and lasting report with your customers, employees and the market
Values are all the beliefs, philosophies and principles that bring value to humans and to businesses. Though most of the people live without knowing their exact list of values, they act and think according to them.
Values make The big difference between you and other businesses and have a major impact in accomplishing your mission. They bring your people together and they create an instant, emotional and lasting report with your customers.
Though people see values as intangible concepts, they are at the core actions or behaviours that can be quantified, measured and felt. Values have a positive valence, but they can easily become an equal burden without authenticity and meaningful implementation. Did I just say implementation? No, you shouldn’t implement values, you should live by them.
The usual process of defining your values involves finding the compelling but powerful words to describe them, and then expressing explicitly how the company translates those words into behaviours.
Why are values so important?
Values represent your genuine business card. They’re the magnet and the glue that attracts and keeps your employees and clients. Please note that this is valid only if you believe and act on them.
Your customers will choose you over others because you have the same view of the world and you act predictably based on them. That’s how you make friends, right?They’ll know what you like, what you value and how you will behave. Beyond this, your products and services are just objects of the strong relationship you’re building based on common values.
As I was working at a software company, one of our products gained massive market share because we committed to offering the best customer service. Even though sometimes the clients gave up on better technical solutions, they declared that they felt at ease knowing that they will have somebody to talk to when they encounter a technical problem.
During a project of defining the company values, the founder suggested that we all analyse and negotiate our list of values to be able to choose the final 5 ones to represent the company.
Well, I had to organise a focused session with all the managers to explain the importance of setting the right values and enforce the idea that they are not just buzz words.
Because it was really hard to think about values without a reference system, we found a winning approach. Everything sounded really nice in theory, that we will find some values we appreciate and we will live our business by them.
But the most important thing is what happens when values are challenged.
The most helpful question that arises is: how will we react in our relationship with customers, partners, employees, and community during critical moments?
From this point, everything became easier, because you can exaggerate hypothetical critical situations to find out what you really value by how you will choose to react. You know how you can truly know a friend when you need him?
That’s why when we imagined facing adversities, our values became clearer. It helped us decide, for example, that when our business goes south, we will continue to serve our clients with the same stewardship and commitment.
When we had to choose between our procedures and the immediate needs of the clients, what do you think we chose? All the decisions regarding people were made from that point according to our values. When having to decide if we should plan an exit, it was a huge help to look at our values, mission and vision.
Stay tuned for more practical examples on how you unfold your Values, give them the right words and live them across anything you do? You have a lot of help here. Check out other resources or find the product that gives you the right tool to accompany you in your journey.
Check out our comprehensive guide on setting your company values.
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