10 Steps to Define and Create your Company Values for a Bright Future

Building company values is essential for any organization to define its identity, guide its actions, bright future and shape its culture. These values serve as the bedrock upon which the company’s mission, vision, and goals are built. By aligning values with purpose and engaging stakeholders in the process, companies can create a strong foundation for success and sustainability. Creating values for a company involves establishing guiding principles and beliefs that shape the organization’s culture, behaviors, and decision-making processes.

Here are 10 steps to help you build values for your organization:

1. Define Your Company’s Purpose: Start by clarifying the purpose of your company. What is the reason your organization exists beyond making a profit? Your values should align with this purpose.
2. Identify Core Beliefs: Reflect on the fundamental beliefs that drive your company. What principles are most important to your organization? Consider aspects like integrity, innovation, customer focus, teamwork, diversity, sustainability, etc.
3. Engage Stakeholders: Involve key stakeholders such as employees, customers, partners, and investors in the process of defining values. Gather input from various perspectives to ensure inclusivity and alignment.
4. Craft Clear and Concise Values: Develop a set of values that are clear, concise, and memorable. Aim for a small number of values (usually no more than 5–7) to ensure focus and effectiveness.
5. Ensure Alignment with Mission and Goals: Ensure that the values you define align with your company’s mission, vision, and strategic goals. Values should serve as guiding principles that support the achievement of your organization’s objectives.
6. Lead by Example: Leadership plays a crucial role in shaping organizational culture. Leaders should embody the company’s values in their actions, decisions, and interactions, serving as role models for others.
7. Integrate Values into Processes and Practices: Embed your values into various aspects of your organization, including hiring and onboarding processes, performance evaluations, decision-making frameworks, and daily operations.
8. Communicate and Reinforce: Clearly communicate your company’s values to all stakeholders through internal communications, training programs, and regular reinforcement. Celebrate examples of behaviors that exemplify your values.
9. Regularly Review and Update: As your company evolves and grows, periodically review your values to ensure they remain relevant and reflective of your organization’s identity and aspirations. Update them as needed to maintain alignment with your mission and goals.
10. Evaluate and Measure: Establish metrics or indicators to assess how well your organization is living up to its values. Solicit feedback from employees and stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of your values in shaping culture and driving behavior.

Here are some examples of Company Values:

o Integrity: Acting with honesty and transparency in all dealings.

o Customer-centric: Putting customers’ needs and satisfaction at the forefront of every decision.

o Innovation: Embracing creativity and continuously striving for improvement.

o Teamwork: Collaborating effectively and valuing diverse perspectives.

o Accountability: Taking responsibility for actions and delivering on commitments.

o Respect: Treating others with dignity, empathy, and understanding.

o Excellence: Pursuing the highest standards of quality and performance.

o Sustainability: Operating in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

o Adaptability: Being flexible and responsive to change.

o Empowerment: Encouraging employees to take initiative and make meaningful contributions.

o Inclusivity: Creating an environment where everyone feels valued and included.

o Community Engagement: Supporting and giving back to the communities in which the company operates.

o Continuous Learning: Fostering a culture of ongoing education and personal development.

o Work-Life Balance: Promoting well-being and recognizing the importance of a healthy balance between work and personal life.

o Innovation: Encouraging creativity, experimentation, and the pursuit of new ideas.

o Resilience: Demonstrating the ability to overcome challenges and bounce back from setbacks.

Now, let’s examine the values adopted by leading companies in the industry:

Famous Companies and their values:

1. Google:

· Focus on the user and all else will follow

· It’s best to do one thing really, really well

· Fast is better than slow

· You can make money without doing evil

· Great just isn’t good enough

2. Apple:

· Innovation: “Think different.”

· Quality: “We strive to bring the best products to the market and leave a lasting impact on the world.”

· Simplicity: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

· Empowerment: “Empower every person and organization to achieve more.”

· Sustainability: “We are committed to leaving the world better than we found it.”

3. Amazon:

·Customer Obsession:

· “Leaders start with the customer and work backward. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust.”

· Ownership: “Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results.”

· Invent and Simplify: “Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify.”

· Learn and Be Curious: “Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves.”

· Frugality: “Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention.”

4. Microsoft:

· Empower Every Person and Organization on the Planet to Achieve More: “Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”

· Innovation: “We don’t just embrace what’s new. We invent new things.”

· Diversity and Inclusion: “We believe in the value of diversity and inclusion in helping us achieve our mission and in making our company stronger.”

· Integrity and Transparency: “We will be open and clear in the way we communicate and operate as a company.”

· Trustworthy Computing: “We focus on protecting, respecting, and promoting the rights of individuals and communities online.”

5. Orange Owl:

Passion: Infusing work with boundless energy, joy, and fun, driving creativity.

Excellence: Consistently exceeding expectations with deep insights, aiming for customer delight.

Respect: Championing mutual respect, empathy, and diversity for collaboration.

Innovate: Rooted in curiosity, learning, generating out-of-the-box solutions.

Simplicity: Seeking effective, straightforward solutions, breaking down complex problems.

Collaboration and Communication: Built on effective communication, creating a supportive environment for innovation.

Ownership: Taking initiative, fostering accountability, enthusiasm, creativity, and resilience.

Principled: Integrity guides our actions, ensuring honesty and transparency.

Efficiency: Guiding operations with streamlined processes, optimizing workflows for exceptional results.

Conclusion:

By aligning values with purpose and engaging stakeholders in the process, companies can create a strong foundation for growth. The process involves defining the company’s purpose, identifying core beliefs, engaging stakeholders, crafting clear values, ensuring alignment with mission and goals, leading by example, integrating values into processes, communicating and reinforcing values, regularly reviewing and updating them, and evaluating their effectiveness.

Examples from industry leaders like Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Orange Owl highlight the importance of values such as integrity, innovation, customer focus, teamwork, and sustainability in driving organizational success. In today’s competitive landscape, companies that prioritize strong core values are better positioned to inspire employees, earn customer trust, and achieve long-term success.