Chapter 1: Why have concrete values?
Many companies list a number of words as their core values alongside their mission. Many have done a lot of work to define and justify their values, while others are just empty platitudes from the management’s desk.
In practice, values should reflect both managers’ and employees’ ideas about how to prioritize and act in the company. Values are not a set of rules or guidelines, but something that guides daily life, decisions and collaboration.
You can’t grab any value out of the blue and pull it over people’s heads, but you can cultivate some existing values more than others to push the culture of the company.
Values are closely linked to branding: Ideally, the brand as perceived by the outside world and employees should be completely in line with the existing values. Otherwise, something is wrong.
Press coverage helps define your brand, so if you’ve defined a set of values, they should also permeate your PR work.
So how exactly do you do that?
Case: Ilse Jacobsen fire meltdown
A recent example of how things can go wrong is Ilse Jacobsen Hornbæk, which has built a brand around family values, cultivating “green energy” – and cozy colored rubber boots with laces.
Berlingske has uncovered an extremely stressful work environment with high employee turnover at Ilse Jacobsen Hornbæk, and there are indications that the company’s management style is the cause.
The day after the article was published, Chairman of the Board Morten Albæk said that the management (Ilse Jacobsen and her husband) should be replaced, and the board (consisting of Morten Albæk, Ilse Jacobsen and her husband) agreed. Ilse Jacobsen’s response speaks for itself:
Quote from Berlingske:
Asked directly what she thinks about the fact that her chairman of the board believes that a different management team than the current one should realize the company’s potential, she replies:
“Absolutely right, laying off some of our managers has turned out to be a very good decision, it has brought so much peace and joy to the house.”
However, she concludes by acknowledging that it is indeed the plan that she and her husband, Jesper Bo Jacobsen, will eventually be replaced.
End quote.
You could call it an open mic meltdown.
The obvious thing, of course, is that at first she doesn’t answer that she herself might be the problem, but instead avoids the issue and blames the problem on someone who has been fired. Very easy to expose for the journalist.
The basic problem is that if Ilse Jacobsen Hornbæk really had “healthy family values”, the employees’ reactions would probably have led to self-examination and some different actions by management.
That’s why Ilse’s brand is now suffering damage – because the values and actions signaled are not aligned.
It can’t be hidden
These things have a tendency to work their way to the surface and escape at some point. Explode in the press or on social media.
Therefore, if you have defined a set of values, take a look in the mirror at least once a year: Are you living up to them?
The brand and values are created and live in the company, and you can’t hide a mismatch between formulated values and the values that actually exist.
In the press: Do what you say you do
If one of your values is “openness”, disclose everything that isn’t a trade secret. Stand up and answer questions. Make yourself available.
If another value is “credibility”, don’t paint pictures to hide the fact that something hasn’t gone so well or talk up your future when it’s not realistic. Investors prefer to invest in those who keep and deliver on their promises.
Show it, don’t tell it
We recommend that our customers try to signal their values in the press. But journalists are allergic to big words and buzzwords and they always ask the question:
“Can you give a concrete example of that?”
The concrete example gives you the opportunity to show that you live the values and that they are not just empty words. We often ask this question to our customers ourselves when preparing a PR campaign, because that’s where the good story lies.
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That was a bit about what values are and why you should work with them. Below is some inspiration for putting them into practice – in a way that ensures they are truly embedded in your employees.
Chapter 2: How do you find the values in your company?
The more employees, the more personal values. That’s why it makes sense to formulate values early in the life of the company. Then you can recruit new employees who identify with the values and get a clear direction for the organization and culture.
A single value or two can be a goal of something you want to be better at – but most values should be something that is already part of the DNA of most people in the organization.
At Kemp & Kjær, three workshops and four hours were enough
At Kemp & Kjær, we conducted a value process divided into three workshops over six months.
What is meaningful to us, a PR agency? We manage the public image of companies and individuals, and we want to get stories through to the press while ensuring that journalists have a good experience with us and our clients.
1) At the first workshop, we brainstormed in small groups on what values we saw in the company. This led to a rough list of 15-20 values. In the brainstorm, we also put into words what the value meant and came up with examples of how we had lived out or been in conflict with the value.
The session ended with us talking about the values together and grouping the values that overlapped. We ended up prioritizing 7-8 values and had a number of examples of how they were used.
The whole thing took two hours.
We wrote down the values and rationale in a shared document, where you could also add new points if someone had good ideas. The document contained all the suggestions that came up in the workshop, so we had time to chew on it more.
2) Three months later, we met again and reviewed the list.
Part of the work was to find out if some values were overarching and embraced several other values and if we needed the narrow values or could use the overarching ones.
It took about an hour and led to four values that we now wrote above our daily agenda for the “editorial meeting” that we hold every day after lunch, so we were reminded of them every day.
3) After another three months, we had to finally decide on a set of values.
Were they the right values? Was anything missing?
One new value had appeared in the common document, inspired by customer feedback. It complemented the other four by covering something completely different:
“It’s more colorful where the others are quite blue,” someone said.
After a discussion about what the value meant, how we lived it and what possible alternatives could be, it was adopted. We also briefly turned over the first four values and agreed that the five values are the right set for us.
It took about an hour again.
You can probably pick out the “colorful” one among the five values we ended up with:
Credibility. Integrity. Passion. Transparency. Business understanding.
Do you want to accelerate your company’s value process?
Reach out to Mark & Jakob for sparring.
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