26-09-2025
Meaningful company values
Many companies display their “values” in their visitor reception area.
However, in my experience these values are often very similar or even identical to the values of other similar businesses.
Defining and displaying your company values is certainly worthwhile.
What is more challenging is to ensure these values are specific to your business and guide people’s behaviour and decisions in everyday life at work.
This is the story of what we did as a group of managers to redefine the values of our business.
Redefining the values of the business
On completion of an extensive personal development programme to prepare promising middle managers for senior management positions, the participants decided to get together and redefine the values of the business.
They felt that the "existing" values did not reflect the essence of the company, its principles, beliefs, vision, and culture.
The group aimed to come up with:
- Company-specific values, rather than generic values, that differentiate the company from others.
- Existing values that they didn’t want to lose, as well as values that the company wanted to acquire.
- Values meaningful enough to be referred to in everyday situations to ensure everybody was aligned with the same goals.
- Short bullet points rather than long sentences.
After several meetings the group came up with half a dozen values. Each value was expressed succinctly in a few words, supported by a slide detailing its meaning.
The group presented their recommendations to the board of directors who welcomed the idea with an open mind.
After several iterations, a final set of values was agreed and communicated throughout the business.
As the new values originated from middle managers, they felt comfortable with them and they became a tool used in everyday situations to guide behaviours and decision making.
Change of values after takeover
Several years later, the business was taken over by a large group. On completion of the acquisition the new owners presented the values of their group to the workforce.
While company values are rarely a subject of heated discussion with the workforce, in this case the values of the group generated a strong reaction from employees when they realised the values of the group were significantly different.
This had a profound effect on some people who eventually decided to leave when the group values didn’t match their own.
Although this can be seen as having a negative effect, it allowed the group to focus on those employees who felt comfortable and aligned with the group’s values.
Help
I can help you with this.
I work with overstretched leaders of Engineering SMEs to help them prepare their company so they can achieve profitable growth.
To discuss your specific challenges and explore how I could help you, please use the link below to arrange a free 30-minute conversation.