“Home is not where you live, but where you belong” – African proverb
Almost every organisation, like yours, has vision and mission statements. These are usually accompanied by a handful of values, and altogether they act as a ‘guiding beacon’ that leads the profitability and growth of businesses.
Usually captured in flowery language, they define the approaches and expectations of employees; and are the tenets they must display when they represent the organisation in any environment. Over time, these have described them as the gears of the business’ engine.
Arguably, written to look good on paper and sound great in the ears, these organizational values are meant to behold employees and engineer their attitudes in line with the organisation’s aspirations about people and work. They are meant as steppingstones of inspiration to heights of greatness.
Unfortunately, the ideals behind organizational values are literally becoming meaningless. This is happening because more and more employees are working without even understanding why they are doing what they do.
They talk, but they are not making any commitments. Let us never forget the wisdom of our fathers that, “one has to be credible in order to speak credibly.”
On a more serious note, in some ways, we have forgotten what these ‘organisational values’ represent. They define the broad organizational culture and provide guidelines for acceptable attitudinal standards.
However, many employees have reduced them to a private affair. And they can afford to do so because they do not see you and your managers as an embodiment of what you are professing.
We know that belongingness has always been a sociological given based on the subscription to shared values. Organizational values are a description of the conditions for the belongingness of employees within the organisation.
They are communication tools that require them to admit that no matter our experiences and knowledge, what is truly required of them within the context of their particular belongingness in your organization is their subscription to the set of specific attitudinal traits, termed organizational values.
Psychologists and management gurus have always argued that “a sense of belongingness is essential for employee engagement.” Our innate urge to belong led to the popular “no person is an island” saying. When people desire to belong, it is usually spurred by an aspirational subscription to a set of values espoused in the vision of a group or organisation.
However, in this day, where people simply want to work in order to keep their heads above water, we have employees who do not subscribe to the organizational values and yet purport to belong.
That is like having mercenaries fight for you, they are more likely to swap sides at the sight of rewards. Such mercenaries are non-committed people filling up places without necessarily being effective and efficient for the growth and development of your business.
It is generally accepted that group dynamics are an increasingly vital measure of organizational success. The strength of these dynamics, however, rests on how well the group creates a shared identity. This is where organizational values come into play.
They define what the organisation stands for; and how actions and processes are to be undertaken. This allows for the vision and mission to be imitated in every sphere of the work routine, thereby propelling a synergy of effectiveness and efficiency.
Where the organizational values supersede individual values, people act creatively in ways that almost seems as if they do not act at all; and the shared identity is attended to with the utmost tranquility.
Dear boss, it is no secret that the intrinsic values of the individuals within the team would surface from time to time. You need to understand that these are so ingrained, they are not often aware that act as their reflex responses in life are.
To minimize such intrusion, you need to conduct recurrent training about the importance of organisational values towards the bigger picture. You need to get their hearts and minds to meet and commit to the values that your organization espouses.
In the wake of an inclusive convention that upholds tolerance for all persons irrespective of their beliefs, it is difficult to even ask individuals what values they consider in the line of work.
Thus, we have individuals working in organisations who do not espouse the shared identity carved from their organizational values.
However, it is important to point out that tolerance without adherence to values is a crisis of vision and mission. A crisis that can lead to another; the crisis of learning where employees work anyhow. They become like robots, simply following instructions without aspiring to be creative.
Organizational values manifest themselves as perceptual energisers that shape and influence the nature of attitudes within the work environment. If frequently imparted, they colour employee perception and become so powerful; they invoke emotions, knowledge, thought, and ultimately choices of response that are centred on the vision and mission of the organization.
Instead, of encouraging individual creativity, organizational values define and promote synergized activism by inspiring teamwork and a realistic dependence on team to vitally attain the purpose of the organisation.
The suggestion then is that you get your employees to acknowledge and appreciate the set of organizational values splashed on the walls and on the screen savers of the computers in the organization. Have a productive week.
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Kodwo Brumpon is an executive coach at Polygon Oval, a forward-thinking Pan African management consultancy and social impact firm driven by data analytics, with a focus on understanding the extraordinary potential and needs of organisations and businesses to help them cultivate synergies, that catapults into their strategic growth, and certifies their sustainability.
Comments, suggestions, and requests for talks and training should be sent to him at [email protected]
