Values at the Heart of Culture

Many years ago, I had the good fortune of reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. One of the many lessons he offered in that book was the notion of “centeredness.” He explained that each of us can choose how to center our lives, offering several examples. As much as I wanted to choose Pleasure as my life’s center, I took the lesson to heart and chose to center my life on Principles.

One of those principles is that businesses and organizations can be well run. They can do good work and be a good place to work. They do this by focusing on a specific, stated purpose and by operating according to a clearly defined set of values. For a regular business, the purpose can be to “make money by selling widgets.” For a nonprofit organization, the purpose is usually to serve or be of service. For associations, the members are the recipients of that service.

While a purpose explains why a business or organization exists, a set of values delineates how it operates. As I noted in last week’s blog post, “How to Lead Cultural Change,” an organization’s culture is expressed through its values and how those are expressed within the association and toward its members.

As a rule, cultural change in an organization is needed when either the values have not been clearly stated, or the stated values are not reflected in practice.

Like an association’s purpose and mission, an organization should have a set of values that it follows when pursuing its purpose and mission. These should be publicly displayed and reviewed on a regular basis. It’s also important that each value be clarified with a statement. For example, if the organization values “Honesty” then describe what that means – “Widgets Trade Association values Honesty in all its reporting and interactions with members. The information it provides is complete, data-driven, and fact-based.” By their nature, principles are general terms that need clarity to be effective.

Just as it is leadership’s responsibility to keep the mission focused on its purpose, it also needs to ensure that it holds to its values. The policies, procedures, and practices of the entire organization should be fully aligned with those stated values. When aligned, the culture of the organization will accurately express the will of its leadership.

What does this mean in practice? As an example, let’s look at the Widgets Trade Association’s expression of Honesty.

A new executive director (ED) has been hired, and when preparing for the association’s impending annual meeting, notes that the previous year’s financial report did not include a Statement of Financial Position (balance sheet). When asked, the treasurer responded that they didn’t share that information. They were concerned that their reserves seemed high. The new ED, fresh from reviewing the organization’s governing documents, argued that this practice was not aligned with their stated value of Honesty because the reports were not complete. The ED argued that either the value should change or the practice.

Cultural change begins with an objective assessment of an organization’s values and practices. The solutions are simple:

• If they are missing, develop organizational value statements.

• If the values exist but are not aligned to practice, then change the values or change the practices.

• If the values exist and are aligned to practices, celebrate!

  
  

Of course, aligning practices to values sounds simple, but can be hard work. However, as I have detailed in my other articles on culture this month, training and resources are available to assist. And, of course, you have your friendly, neighborhood nonprofit consultant, just a call or email away.