Are you looking for your core values?
Introduction
Core values appear to be very important nowadays. The number of hits you will get at Google when typing “core values” comes close to 4 million. When using a meta search machine the number of hits is over a 100 million.
Since the late eighties a fair number of multinationals invited us to measure their culture. Given the complexity of The Hofstede Model it was extremely labour intensive and therefore cost prohibitive to survey a whole multinational. It is only recently that we are able, with the help of the Finnish software company, Feedbackdialog, to do everything on-line, making our approach very cost effective. It is only now possible to conduct very complex assignments.
Thus, these measurements were limited to certain parts of our multinational clients. In some instances our surveys, nevertheless, covered over time a substantial part of them.
All these multinationals were and are cherishing their core values. They often spent a lot of time, energy and money in identifying them and in formulating them in a catching way. Interesting though, we rarely have been able to identify those core values when analysing our survey data. How come?
One possible answer: The Hofstede Model does not include core values
The most obvious reason may be that The Hofstede Model on organisational culture does not include “core values”. After all, if the Model does not cover core values one will not find them when applying the Model.
Before answering this question let us first look at some definitions.
As so often in the case of social sciences, there does not exist one calibrated definition of “core values”. Let us therefore give here our definition of “Core values”: Core values form the glue that bond people in an organisation together on the deepest level possible. Core values give meaning to work life, it gives identity and it creates common purpose and direction.
This definition tells us that if core values exist, then people in an organisation have things in common on the deepest level possible. The words “core values” suggest that these commonalities are going deeper than just values. Can that really be the case? Before answering this question, let us first look at “plain” values. Geert Hofstede defines values as broad preferences of on estate of affairs over others to which strong emotions are attached and by which one group distinguishes itself from other groups.” Geert’s research has shown that we find such value differences especially among groups coming from different nations. Sometimes one may also find strong value differences among people coming from different regions within the same country such as between people born and raised in North and South Italy and between the German and French speaking people in the different cantons in Switzerland.
When comparing organisations of any size within the same country we don’t find any significant value differences due to the law of the big numbers. The average value pattern of employees within different organisations in the same country tend to cluster closely around the average value preferences found in that country as a whole (or for that matter in the region as a whole).
These values are about the way individuals relate to groups; it is about the way we deal with the fact that life is per definition insecure; it is about the way those who have less power deal with does who have more power; it is about the differentiation of roles between men and women and the role patterns stemming from such a role differentiation. Or formulated in a more mundane way: it is about the way we define ourselves as social beings, i.e. in terms of I or we; it is about the way we deal with the fact that we will all die; it is about politics and it is e.g. about our attitudes towards losers and winners.
Core values are about customer focus, about quality, about stewardship, about innovation. These are not deeper aspects of life than the issues listed above; they are instead more superficial. The question therefore is: Why have such things been called, “core values”? The reason is that these two words sounds so convincing. It is part of American culture, where this concept has been developed, to talk in a assertive and convincing way. In reality core values are neither values nor virtues, but beliefs and/or practices. When person X of company Y tells us that one of their core values is “customer focus”, the message behind it is: “that we all belief that it is our mutual interest to service our clients well”. We then tend to think: “That is not a core value; that is common sense”.
The Hofstede Model on organisational culture covers several levels of reality. The most superficial level being symbols up to the deepest level being beliefs. In other words The Hofstede Model covers “core values”.
By the way our definition of “Core values” given above as “Core values form the glue that bond people in an organisation together on the deepest level possible” still applies when the words core values are changed into “beliefs”. Common beliefs in an organisation give meaning to work life, they create identity and common direction.
Second possible answer: The Hofstede Model does include core values, but only to a limited degree
A second reason that we have so rarely identified core values may be
explained by shortcomings in the Model. This can be countered by the
fact that Hofstede tried to cover as much ground by the Model as
possible. Culture only exists by comparison. Thus, when using such a
survey tool it is not of great help to add specific questions to the
survey questionnaire to meet additional requests of clients. In such
cases one doesn’t know how to interpret the additional data thus
collected. This may be true, but will not give any proof of the fact
that the Model has its limits. By the way, every model has its
limits, the question is only to which degree. A model consisting of
six autonomous variables (dimensions) and two semi-autonomous
dimensions, as the Hofstede Model does, will anyway cover much more
ground than the well known model of Quinn and Cameron having only two
dimensions.
Another way to look at it is by comparing a number of often quoted core values with the content of the Model. Core values often embraced by organisations are:
- Change (drive for change)
- Customer focus (meeting demands of customers)
- Entrepreneurial
- Excellence
- Global (creation and maintenance of one global company)
- Individual (respect for the individual)
- Innovation
- Integrity
- Learning (continuous learning)
- Quality
- Safety (drive for safety)
- Stewardship (support in order to get the best out of people)
- Value (creation of stakeholders value)
- Walking the talk
These core values can be either translated in terms of “Beliefs”, i.e. that we think that these are the most important aspects in our work life to be realised. These core values can also be translated in terms of practices; i.e. it is with priority that our activities are directed at their realisation.
It is not always easy to translate these “core values” in terms of the model without any explanation or without a more elaborate explanation of what is meant by these short cuts, such as “quality”. Once management has done so, all core values until now could be translated in terms of the Model. In other words the Model covers enough ground to measure whether and to which degree the actual culture of clients will support or hinder realisation of most core values being en vogue.
The third and most likely answer: “Core values - A sweet ideology”? May it be, that despite all talk about core values in many respectable organisations these values remain limited to sweet talk, even if one of the following core values is being emphasised: “We walk the talk”?
Based on numerous quick scans conducted by us and our associates among many well known companies we had to come to this conclusion. Not that we never found any core values. But more often than not, we didn’t find even a hint of such values, whether called core values or called beliefs and practices.
Managers sometimes get upset about such findings for several reasons:
- They would claim that surveys conducted recently clearly showed that their core values were fully embraced by their people. If allowed, we would then look at these surveys and what we normally found was the following: These surveys didn’t measure the content of their actual culture. They were opinion polls. In these polls people were sometimes asked whether they were cognisant of the newly introduced core values. The fact that people know about such values doesn’t mean that people will work accordingly, certainly not when top management would have embraced their own core values in words but not in deeds.
- More often than above, such opinion polls ask respondents whether core values have become part of daily work life. The fact that respondents come up with affirmative answers doesn’t necessarily imply that these core values have really become part of their daily life and therefore of their actual culture. Respondents may given socially desirable answers for a number of reasons, separately or in combination:
- We have noted that the introduction of core values is often accompanied by a lot of conferences, meetings, workshops and other flows of communication in which these core values are hammered down into the minds of people. It will then become difficult to deny the existence of such core values, even if they are not around.
- We have noted that despite all these efforts much less time, energy and money has been invested in changing the content of culture in such a way that these core values have become part and parcel of their culture. In such situations what people claim conflicts with how people behave. It is not always easy to acknowledge such inconsistencies
- Worse, it happens rather often that top managers themselves don’t behave according to these core values, as it easy for them to find excuses why they could not comply with them in this “special occasion”. As a consequence the implicit yet overpowering message is: “We say that we walk the talk, which we don’t really do, but please don’t tell anybody”. This is a rather cynical position, which may create dysfunctionalities in their culture. In such situations respondents will more likely give socially desirable answers.
- Things are made even worse if the above happens while at the same time one of the core values is: “We walk the talk”. This then has no other consequence than to increase cynicism, having even a more dysfunctional impact on their culture than above. In such situations respondents will even more likely give socially desirable answers.
- A different reason why managers may become upset about the fact that we didn’t find much of their core values alive and kicking, is because they rightly claim that they invested so much time, money and energy in introducing these core values. The sad thing about life, though, is that good intentions and huge efforts don’t necessarily guarantee success. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. This touches on the topic of change philosophy and change management, which will be dealt with in a separate article.
Conclusion
Core values remain more often than not an ideology which has not been put
in practice. With ideology is meant here: “The aspirations people
have regarding the way all those in the organisation should conduct
work life”.
- We rightly believe that it may create useful guiding principles
- We rightly believe that it may create meaning in work life
- We rightly believe that it may create common identity
- We rightly believe that it may create common purpose
- We rightly believe so, but we have chosen core values which sound good, but which may only partially relate to work reality
- We rightly believe so, but we have chosen core values which left out the most important guiding principles, such as creation of the highest turnover per employee, or other commercial or political imperatives, because they don't sound well.
- We rightly believe so, but we have invested all our energy in the process and not in the content of our actual and optimal culture
- We rightly believe so, but we may not be aware of the fact that “sell and tell” is the least effective change approach
- Everybody does so, thus we apparently need it as well
- We are told to do so if we don’t want to lag behind