When personal and organizational values are aligned and shared by key stakeholders great things can happen.

In my last video and article I spoke about two business leaders who claimed their company success was in great part due to their well communicated corporate values.

Creating corporate values is a pretty straightforward affair. You of course need to afford the time it takes to do it. And this is where many businesses fail, as a high percentage of business owners and leaders are too busy dealing with the day-to-day business matters.

Once you understand the benefits and the importance of defining your corporate values will set aside the time it takes to get it done.

Just last week I facilitated a values definition meeting for customer service department. Within two hours they had shared their key personal values and agreed on their five top departmental values.

The next step for them will be to define what each of those values means so they can be lived by the team members. Here are the steps to go through to set the values for your organization. It is imperative to have a skilled facilitator run these sessions. I good facilitator will set ground rules to make sure that the participants stay on track and come to a consensus.

Here is the process I use:

Personal Values

The first step is to meet with your team and brainstorm the personal values of each team member.

I like to start with a long list of personal values and have each person classify the values by order of importance using high, medium or low importance.

From this list. I then have them rate the high importance, values on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most important. Then I asked them to choose their top five most important values from the weighted list.

I then have each person share their top five values and write them on a flipchart. We then can see what the most common shared values are. Next I ask each person to choose one of the values and write down why that value is important to them. I have each person then share what they wrote and asked for comments from the others. This helps each person understand how each one thinks and helps build mutual understanding and communication.

Organizational Values

I follow the same process for setting the organizational or departmental values as I did with the personal values. The differences I start with a list of values that are different than the personal values. If you do not start with a list of values, you can always have the group brainstorm a list and then go from there. Having a prepared list facilitates the process and saves time.

Once we have listed the most important organizational or departmental values on the flip chart, it’s often easy to see the shared most important values. Often, there may be three or four that stand out and then you have five or six that may need prioritizing. I would suggest having between four and six key values and not more.

One way to prioritize the list of remaining values is to have the group go through the same exercise of waiting each value as before. This usually narrows down the list to two or three top values.

Values Definition

Once the top organizational department values are determined ask each person to write down a description of each value. I ask the question, what would other people see happening if everyone in your organization or department was putting into practice these values?

Depending on the size of the group. You can then have people pair up and take one value and summarize the definition of the value based on hearing what others had to say about that value. Or you could assign one person per value to take what each person wrote and summarize this in a statement. They would do this is an assignment and report back at the next meeting.

Broadcasting Your Values

It is important to broadcast your values and make them visible. A good example is Zappos who proudly showcases their values in their work setting and publicizes them. This creates a culture that strives to live the values and results in a better workplace as well as superior organizational performance.

Strategic Vision.

Defining organizational and departmental values that are linked to personal values is a key step in creating a strategic vision and plan. It’s a great way to engage people and rally them behind a purpose and mission.

It is also a key element in building an autonomous team that practices continuous improvement.

Stephen Goldberg