Are values soft or hard?

Many organizations believe values are 'a good thing'. They see them helping recruitment, and providing useful fodder for the Annual Report - but otherwise remote from the real world, the bottom line.

Do they say, "You're behind on your value targets this year", or, "Breaching values is a sacking offence?" No - but fall behind on your performance targets and you can expect trouble. Organizations like this don't manage values. They play with them. And in regarding values as soft and optional, they usually make three big mistakes:

• They assume that values are generic, and unrelated to the vision.

• They do not link values to key success factors, and gain little impact on performance.

• They do not translate values into practices, so they are not lived or measured.

Contrast this with the best managers of values:

"Federal Express, from its inception, has put its people first, both because it is right to do so, and because it is good business as well. Our corporate philosophy is succinctly stated: People-Service-Profit."

FREDERICK SMITH, FOUNDER CHAIRMAN AND CEO ^[1]

"Our firm's culture is the most sustainable advantage we have."

BILL BUCKLEY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, GOLDMAN SACHS ^[2]

'Ethos (or values) provides the context within which you move from A to B. It's the most important aspect of the armed forces, and absorbed into the bloodstream through training. This ethos is timeless and almost unchanged since Wellington's time 200 years ago."