Yeah. File this under another thoughtcrime I've committed.
There was one set of values that my company's CEO wrote up on the fly b/c we were doing reviews for the first time. Those values are _awesome_. They're explicit about the goal of making money, they're explicit about priority, just awesome.
The new COO felt like he needed to make an impact so he wrote some new ones. The company I work for also has a very playful marketing tone, and he applied our marketing tone to our company values. The values also aren't explicit-- they are each a complete sentence, but it's fairly vague how they should be applied. Idk. I know it's all bullshit, but I felt like we really had something for a moment. I think that the new generation (I'm 29) is just so tired of being marketed or manipulated that honest "we're here to make money" is a better value than "We should all do what we can to hit our numbers."
Maybe this is just a problem that engineers and lawyers have, since we neurotically try to find the inconsistencies and misapplications of statements.
I too, share in the goal and passion of making monkeys.
In all seriousness though, I'm surprised the number is even as high as 27%. Unless you're working for the Peace Corps or some charity that's trying to do some real good in the world, you're probably working for a business that is there to make money. And the reason you're working there is most likely that you need to make money to live on.
It's nice when companies just cut through all the bs and pretense and are honest about it.
> I'm surprised the number is even as high as 27%.
Every statement of company values I have ever read has been very bland, essentially a bunch of motherhoods that virtually no one would ever disagree with. Who ever had a problem with "innovation" or "communication"? A statement that actually made some choices, that drew some actual lines in the sand, would be very welcome. Imagine a company that said something like this:
"We are high performers. We recruit only the highly accomplished, and reward those who do great work far above common standards for our industry. We cull the laggards ruthlessly."
or
"We acknowledge a duty to act in the interests of our employees, customers, and stockholders, even beyond strict legal requirements. If we absolutely have to choose among these groups, the stockholders come first. Note that the list does not include suppliers, the government, or the general public."
or
"We believe in hierarchy. It's the only way to effectively organize the efforts of thousands of people. Your boss has done something to earn our trust in ways you have not. Accordingly, in a dispute between you and them, we will almost certainly side with them. If you have serious conflicts with them, we recommend you leave."
I've always seem company values with things like "We respect each other", "we operate with integrity in every aspect of our interaction with other stockholders".
It's all bullshit anyhow because it doesn't matter what your execs put down as the company values if your manager has different ideas. And everyone knows there's a cold chance in hell they'll be held responsible unless they're already out to get them. If your publicized values take a backseat to other things they're not really your values.
"We value honesty" in your company values but you'd better not "rock the boat". I've had "have fun and play" or something to that extent in my company values but had the exec I reported up to present that then in the very next slide say "That's good for the company but really no, that doesn't apply to our group." I've had "Always be continuously improving" and had a direct manager say "what is that shit anyway? I don't buy it" about it. You might ask why someone would disagree with something that's so blandly uncontroversial and it turns out that you need to be okay with admitting that there's room for improvement and that's not compatible with carefully crafted slide decks talking about how awesome we were. As you can imagine technical debt was left unchecked until something caught fire. And after a couple years of that kind of management there's pretty much always a fire.
Wow, that whole article is a very interesting read. Certainly a world run by sociopaths does generally fit with how history has unfolded... I think though that the author makes one mistake where he conflates the perception that social mores are ultimately constructed fables with the ability and willingness to construct your own in order to control other people.
Fill as many landfills as possible with trackers purchased and either used a handful of times before collecting dust and eventually being thrown away, or quickly discarded when the next incremental upgraded device comes out?
I'm really not trying to be mean, and I'm sure a lot of people find value in fitness tracking (and I'm just as guilty of it as I'm wearing a shiny new Pebble 2, which also has fitness tracking), but that's the unfortunate reality of hardware company that comes out with the new shiny all the time: people buy it who shouldn't and other people throw them away far too quickly and thus a ton of waste is created.
I can't even imagine how many landfills got filled with just Rock Band and Guitar Hero plastic guitars and drums, for example. Millions got sold, and after a few years, pretty much all of it got thrown away.
I really wish there was a better way to reuse old electronics.
It can have a culture, that I will agree with. And that culture can be objectively better/worse when compared against a traditional moral system (and I'm only being so pedantic here with the "moral system" phrasing because culture that's good in one country/society may be considered toxic in another, so there's no objective measure of moral righteousness when examining a culture.
Values, on the other hand, are almost purely fiction. They are what certain executives (the ones charged with coming up with and signing off on the values statements) want employees, customers and the public to believe is the culture the company has created (or is trying to create), but that's not the same thing as the culture itself or what a value actually is. Using the term "values" here just anthropomorphizes a non-sentient entity (a company) in an attempt to create an emotional response in people.
Considering I've worked at a place in the past where providing an "excellent work-life for it's employees" was written into the quality policy, but they consistently treated all their employees like crap; I'd be willing to argue that only 27% of businesses believe in their own values.
Firstly: This should be changed to link to the original Gallup article [0] since the submitted link is just a shameless reformatting of their original work (and is harder to read).
Secondly: Something I think people are missing is that breaches of company values are part of the ammunition that can be used to fire people. I'd wager that's as much of the purpose of (big-company) "values" as anything else.
I don't see this as a negative thing having witnessed someone terminated before in part due to misalignment with values. It can be a very useful tool for getting rid of someone who is quite obviously causing damage but might be hard to get rid of for other causes.
Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. It is a way of codifying the culture and can serve as part of the company's immune system to expel threats to that culture.
Making sure I understand and align with the values of companies I work for is something I've found to be tremendously helpful in ensuring I enjoy working there.
> I don't see this as a negative thing having witnessed someone terminated before in part due to misalignment with values. It can be a very useful tool for getting rid of someone who is quite obviously causing damage but might be hard to get rid of for other causes.
That's just the Al Capone argument. Should we have insane tax laws that everyone has broken at some point just so that the state can send the "right person" to jail? Should we allow planting of contraband on the "right suspect" because if they didn't have anything on them today you're making up for when they'll have something on them tomorrow? Holding a 5 tonne weight over everyone's head is no way to foster a good culture. You're just forcing people to live in fear of unjust reprimands.
But most people, I'd wager, are either misaligned with at least one or two of the company's values, or have acted contrary to them at some point. Yet, they don't get fired.
"Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. "
How'd that work at Wells Fargo? Whistleblowers were promptly fired.
"More than ever, our customers need a safe, trustworthy, capable financial services provider that can help them plan for and achieve their financial goals"
We can wear jeans and t-shirts, but the new professional standard requires pretending to have passion for the CEO's vision because plain old performance with a good attitude isn't enough anymore. Thought codes instead of dress codes.
Well, I would say that there are the set of company values that get printed on posters and placed in breakrooms. 27% of employees believe in those.
But, most importantly, there is an unwritten set of values that rules over those companies. Those who understand those values tend to do well. However, many don't realize this, and the dissonance often leads to a crappy work experience.
Readit News
There was one set of values that my company's CEO wrote up on the fly b/c we were doing reviews for the first time. Those values are _awesome_. They're explicit about the goal of making money, they're explicit about priority, just awesome.
The new COO felt like he needed to make an impact so he wrote some new ones. The company I work for also has a very playful marketing tone, and he applied our marketing tone to our company values. The values also aren't explicit-- they are each a complete sentence, but it's fairly vague how they should be applied. Idk. I know it's all bullshit, but I felt like we really had something for a moment. I think that the new generation (I'm 29) is just so tired of being marketed or manipulated that honest "we're here to make money" is a better value than "We should all do what we can to hit our numbers."
Maybe this is just a problem that engineers and lawyers have, since we neurotically try to find the inconsistencies and misapplications of statements.
[edit] money, not monkeys. Thanks kd :)
In all seriousness though, I'm surprised the number is even as high as 27%. Unless you're working for the Peace Corps or some charity that's trying to do some real good in the world, you're probably working for a business that is there to make money. And the reason you're working there is most likely that you need to make money to live on.
It's nice when companies just cut through all the bs and pretense and are honest about it.
Every statement of company values I have ever read has been very bland, essentially a bunch of motherhoods that virtually no one would ever disagree with. Who ever had a problem with "innovation" or "communication"? A statement that actually made some choices, that drew some actual lines in the sand, would be very welcome. Imagine a company that said something like this:
"We are high performers. We recruit only the highly accomplished, and reward those who do great work far above common standards for our industry. We cull the laggards ruthlessly."
or
"We acknowledge a duty to act in the interests of our employees, customers, and stockholders, even beyond strict legal requirements. If we absolutely have to choose among these groups, the stockholders come first. Note that the list does not include suppliers, the government, or the general public."
or
"We believe in hierarchy. It's the only way to effectively organize the efforts of thousands of people. Your boss has done something to earn our trust in ways you have not. Accordingly, in a dispute between you and them, we will almost certainly side with them. If you have serious conflicts with them, we recommend you leave."
It's like kindergarten meets lawyeresse.
"We value honesty" in your company values but you'd better not "rock the boat". I've had "have fun and play" or something to that extent in my company values but had the exec I reported up to present that then in the very next slide say "That's good for the company but really no, that doesn't apply to our group." I've had "Always be continuously improving" and had a direct manager say "what is that shit anyway? I don't buy it" about it. You might ask why someone would disagree with something that's so blandly uncontroversial and it turns out that you need to be okay with admitting that there's room for improvement and that's not compatible with carefully crafted slide decks talking about how awesome we were. As you can imagine technical debt was left unchecked until something caught fire. And after a couple years of that kind of management there's pretty much always a fire.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...
I'm really not trying to be mean, and I'm sure a lot of people find value in fitness tracking (and I'm just as guilty of it as I'm wearing a shiny new Pebble 2, which also has fitness tracking), but that's the unfortunate reality of hardware company that comes out with the new shiny all the time: people buy it who shouldn't and other people throw them away far too quickly and thus a ton of waste is created.
I can't even imagine how many landfills got filled with just Rock Band and Guitar Hero plastic guitars and drums, for example. Millions got sold, and after a few years, pretty much all of it got thrown away.
I really wish there was a better way to reuse old electronics.
Companies can have values, but it's probably rare because what brings most people in a company together is a desire to pay the bills.
It can have a culture, that I will agree with. And that culture can be objectively better/worse when compared against a traditional moral system (and I'm only being so pedantic here with the "moral system" phrasing because culture that's good in one country/society may be considered toxic in another, so there's no objective measure of moral righteousness when examining a culture.
Values, on the other hand, are almost purely fiction. They are what certain executives (the ones charged with coming up with and signing off on the values statements) want employees, customers and the public to believe is the culture the company has created (or is trying to create), but that's not the same thing as the culture itself or what a value actually is. Using the term "values" here just anthropomorphizes a non-sentient entity (a company) in an attempt to create an emotional response in people.
Does this include PR employees?
When advocating for a company? No, of course not.
Secondly: Something I think people are missing is that breaches of company values are part of the ammunition that can be used to fire people. I'd wager that's as much of the purpose of (big-company) "values" as anything else.
[0] http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/195506/few-workers-app...
Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. It is a way of codifying the culture and can serve as part of the company's immune system to expel threats to that culture.
Making sure I understand and align with the values of companies I work for is something I've found to be tremendously helpful in ensuring I enjoy working there.
That's just the Al Capone argument. Should we have insane tax laws that everyone has broken at some point just so that the state can send the "right person" to jail? Should we allow planting of contraband on the "right suspect" because if they didn't have anything on them today you're making up for when they'll have something on them tomorrow? Holding a 5 tonne weight over everyone's head is no way to foster a good culture. You're just forcing people to live in fear of unjust reprimands.
"Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. "
So, not management, then?
Company value: respect. Ok. Your boss rips you a new one. Screams. Name calls. Uses profanity. Play the "respect card" this will work.
Company value Integrity: you are suggested to do something shady or wrong to boost a metric. Play the integrity card.
"More than ever, our customers need a safe, trustworthy, capable financial services provider that can help them plan for and achieve their financial goals"
https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/corporate/vision-and-values...
But it isn't "cool" to admit it, in job postings as well as in job applications.
In my experience "professionality" is also doing your job (and doing it well) also and especially when it's a chore.
But, most importantly, there is an unwritten set of values that rules over those companies. Those who understand those values tend to do well. However, many don't realize this, and the dissonance often leads to a crappy work experience.
What the term really means is more like "the CEO's values" or "values as defined by consensus of the people in a subcommittee."