Lists of corporate values are useless if your team members don’t understand what each value actually means.
[flgallery id=9 /]We’ve posted before about the challenge of helping your team members get clear about your corporate values. Most of the time, when we hear leaders say their corporate value list isn’t shaping the way they do business, it’s because the values are too undefined for team members to operationalize.
Words like “Responsibility” or “Integrity” may be broadly understood by everyone, but what do they mean for your managing director who is just trying to increase her team’s productivity or meet a client’s challenging demands?
Our post from last month suggests an activity that can help your leaders get clear about the true, operational meaning of each of your corporate values. But if you need an example of how to do it well, you can look no further than the children at one Chicago elementary school, who posted signs around their campus highlighting shared values and an example of what it looks like to live out that value.
In words any young reader can understand, the signs (created by the children) make clear the ways in which broad-concept values apply to the lives of young students.
Can you offer examples this clear to your team members?