5 Steps to Create Your Company’s Cultural Value

Many companies are investing time and effort in creating their cultural values. It is said that these values matter because they make the company, the leaders, and the employees one.

Cultural values are also known as corporate values or core values. They are the integral beliefs that help people act in achieving their goals as well as the company’s. They are the structure of the company’s identity and sum up the reasons why the organisation exists.

With this being said, how can a company successfully create its cultural values? Let’s run it down in five steps.

1. Know your organisation’s purpose.

Have you asked, “Why does the company exist?” or “Why are we doing what we are doing?”.

It is important that you know where and what you stand for. The ability of the company to flourish is not about the products or services, it’s about what you believe in. Once you know who you are and why you exist as a company, it will help you to drive towards your goal.

“Everyone on the team plays an equal role. My role is to create the wave and everyone on our team keeps the wave going.”

– William Wang, Founder, Vizio

2. Know your people.

How well do you know your employees? You have assembled a fantastic team of talented and headstrong individuals. However, for some reason, what’s happening isn’t what you have envisioned for the organisation.

Start with knowing your people. It is important to know what’s vital for these employees to push them forward and to go to work. You would know what they are passionate about, and what they would do once they need to make an important decision. If you won’t work on knowing them, people will work towards different goals, with different motivations, and with different results.

“The real competitive advantage in any business is one word only, which is ‘people’.”

— Kamil Toume, Writer and Thought Leader

3. Assemble a team to conceptualise.

You already know what the organisation’s purpose is and you have talented people in your employ. It’s now time to do the ‘brain’ work.

As the saying goes, two brains are better than one. Having a team will ensure the core values that will be formed are not just from one person’s point of view. You can divide this task into two groups.

a. Leadership Brainstorming

Start with the leaders since they are going to be the drivers in motivating the employees to

live by the culture. Let them write up dozens of values. By doing this, you would know the most important concepts for the leaders.

b. Team Brainstorming

Employees are more motivated, more productive, more satisfied, and more fulfilled once

they feel that they are involved in the process. By sharing them the first draft of the values that the leaders worked on and let them reflect, choose, and suggest what they deem are the most important for them would make them more accountable in everything they do in the company.

“The role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen.”
― Simon Sinek, Author, and Motivational Speaker

4. Gathering feedback, polishing, and finalising.

After several brainstorming sessions, the next step is to sit down with the leaders to study what they have gotten as their cultural values. Let’s be reminded that these words will be nothing if there are no meanings behind them, and what they truly embody.

Discussing the final list with the entire team, both in-person and via email, will make the values easier for the employees to embrace and accept. Now that the values have been created, they now have a real weight which would result in getting everyone’s buy-in.

“Transparency starts as a mindset change.”

– Kevan Lee, Content Crafter, Buffer

5. Adoption

Now that you have identified and finalised the list of your company’s cultural values, the real work starts. What approach will you take to bring these values to life? Make sure to integrate your company’s cultural values throughout every part of the business.

You can integrate the core values on these platforms:

a. Your company’s website

Your current employees, potential employees, current clients, potential clients, and the rest of the community could see what your organisation is all about.

b. Recruitment and selection process

Hiring would be easier knowing that you have these core values as your guiding principle in choosing “culture fit” people.

c. Employee performance reviews

In order to really know if the people in the organisation are really embracing the values, you have set. It will also be a good avenue for them to voice out how they feel about the company, the values, and the current direction the organisation is gearing towards.

“I think as a company, if you can get those two things right — having a clear direction on what you are trying to do and bringing in great people who can execute on the stuff — then you can do pretty well.”

– Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook