Newsletter - October 2004

CORE VALUES, ACCIDENTAL VALUES AND ASPIRATIONAL VALUES

In many organisations today it is common for the leadership team to go away to a planning session and create a set of values for the staff to live by at work. These values are greeted with varying receptions when the leaders return to the workplace. Many staff look at the list of values and either reject them openly or grumble quietly that it’s all a crock.

The problem with designing a set of values for other people is that the staff may not believe in those values or feel empowered to implement those values. Values created like this are best described as Aspirational, that is, something that the organisation aspires to achieving at a future moment in time.

Every person lives by a set of Core Values. We learn these core values from our earliest times usually originally from our parents. We learn things like, it’s important to tell the truth, you must always do what you say you will do, or always carry a clean handkerchief with you! These are some of the values my mother impressed on me.

When we progress to school we learn more values, from people like the teachers we admire most. Values like, study hard and you will be rewarded, play sport and you will be valued at this school. Finally we graduate to the workplace and we learn more values from people we admire, like work hard and you will be rewarded handsomely.

As we journey through life we also adopt values which could be described as Accidental. These values are usually thrust upon us and we learn to live with them or by them as time passes. Accidental Values could include things like children! When I was first married I was in no hurry to have children and as the years went by I felt less inclined to have them. Life was good, we did not want for money, holidays or much at all. When we finally did decide to have children it took a bit of persuading for me to agree. Now that I have them, I am extremely happy and wouldn’t give up the experience for anything. I now have a very strong value revolving around my wife and children.

To make Values work in Organisations staff must be made aware that the organisation has adopted a set of values and that for some people they are currently Aspirational. However no matter what, they are still the values the organisation chooses to live by.

WHY VALUES GET A BAD NAME IN ORGANISATIONS

In 1995 I was began working for a large Local Government Organisation. My first job was to implement a set our nine Corporate Values and 35 associated behaviours. I was given a budget of $75,000 to make this happen and I am sorry to say it was a great waste of rate payer’s money. The values were fine, though there were too many and the underpinning behaviours whilst easy to understand were impossible to remember because there were too many of those as well.

These problems however paled into insignificance when the process began. The organisational values differed greatly from the values and behaviours of the senior management team. Staff would say things to me like, “I’ll start behaving like that when I see my boss doing it”. The process was flawed from the start!

Since that experience I have searched for the best way to implement values successfully within organisations. Dick McCann from Team Management Systems has developed a model called the Window on Work Values. This simple model groups workplace values into four quadrants of value types:

• Self-Focus
• Group-Focus
• Organizational Constraint
• Organizational Freedom

See diagram below:

These four groups can be expanded into eight core value types which together define the main values observed in the workplace. They are:

• Individualism
• Authority
• Compliance
• Conformity
• Collectivism
• Equality
• Empowerment
• Independence

The beauty of this model is the simplicity and it also recognises that the eight value types represent groups of other values. Some models have lists of up to 150 values for people to contend with.

Using the Window on Work Values Model team members identify their organisational values as well as their own value preferences. Time is then spent addressing the differences and the likely impact those differences will have on the team or the organisation. Finally a team charter is developed. This charter identifies the agreed behaviours the organisation and the team is willing to support and implement.

Rather than take the prescriptive road like the Local Government organisation, this method allows all players to be involved and create ownership.

more information on these programs contact me today

9 POWERFUL MARKETING OFFERS

I worked with a group of small business owners last week on marketing in your business. We brainstormed the following list of 9 Powerful Ways to get your message across.

1. Mailing List
   Collect the names and contact details of existing and prospective customers and develop a mailing list. Make sure you get their permission to send them information regularly.
   
   
2. Create a Reason for Existing Clients to Refer Others to You
   Give customers a reason to refer other people to you, reward them. Offer them one of the following:
   • An additional service for every referral
   • A simple $ amount for every new customer
   • Recognition – a hand written thank you note
   • A copy of a book or magazine subscription
   If you are doing a great job for your customers, they will happily refer others to you.
   
   
3. Giveaway Something that Costs You Nothing
   Go to another business and ask for them to give you something you can give away to your customers. Everyone wins!
   
   
4. Create a Privilege Club
   The airlines do this so well! Frequent flyers accumulate points to use within the same business at another time. This creates loyalty and rewards loyalty. Make it worth your customer’s while to be a club member by making special offers to club members only.
   
   
5. Promotion Packs
   A company that manufactures and sells a shower cleaning product knows that if customers use their product once they will come back and use it again and again. They now manufacture a sample size and employ community groups to distribute it by letter box drops in target areas.
   
   
6. Strategic Alliances
   A BBQ retailer gives away $50 worth of meat from the butcher located across the road. The retailer displays large signs with the butcher’s name and location throughout the store. This creates value for purchasers of the BBQ and sends prospective customers across the road to the butcher.
   
7. Postcards
   Print colourful postcards and use them to send clients a hand written note to thank them for their purchase or support. People will not throw out a postcard and will likely pin it up on the wall for all to see.
   
   
8. Add Value
   Look for every opportunity to add value. Schedule a seminar or information evening. Invite a business expert to inform them about the latest trends in business, get a marketing expert to give them tips on selling, get a fitness guru to tell them about the latest trends in balance between life and business.
   
   
9. Handy Hints
   Provide a handy hints sheet which you give away to customers with every purchase. Hints could include how to prolong the life of the product they just bought or ways to use it more effectively. Send the hints sheet out to your customer mailing list each month.
   
   
10. [ Please send me what you consider should be number 10 ]