Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Join James and Coby from Roman 3 as they diagnose issues and prescribe solutions to today's most important workplace challenges.
Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
How Can We Operationalize Our Core Values?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This episode touches on the theme of Strengthening Culture.
In this episode, we explore the intersection between having a clear mission and value for our work and business strategy and decision-making. We dig into the realities of having a business that stands for something or lives up to its priorities, and what difficult decisions that can make.
Our prescription for this episode is to understand that if your organization actually has core values, they cannot be strictly a PR tool; they have to be operating constraints.
Past Episode Referenced:
S3 E10: Initiatives For 2025, Finding Qualified Talent, Using Mission, Vision, And Values - Answering Listener Questions
To talk more about improving your strategy and day-to-day operations, reach out to us at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3
Don't forget to sign up for our New Quarterly Newsletter that launched in the fall of 2024!
About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
Send us a Message! (But we can’t respond, so feel free to email us at info@roman3.ca)
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just my lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James, and, let's get started with a question. How can we operationalize our core values?
[JAMES]:Well, the simple answer is by making sure they're actually felt and experienced by your frontline staff. If that's not the case, then you haven't operationalized anything. one of the first things that we need to do is really strip away the whole HR poster mentality and treat our values as actual operational constraints. If your state of values don't actually lead to any different actions, then all you're really doing is just broadcasting to people. You're slapping a band aid over your operational culture problems and wondering why people don't connect with your values. Your value. We've talked about how, from an organizational culture perspective, it doesn't matter what you say your values are, it matters how people experience your values. And this is the same with organizational culture as it is with when we're talking about your core operational or core, business values.
[COBY]:Yeah, I mean the idea of the importance of core values is, I mean, it is also kind of a, different kind of conversation than when we're talking necessarily about things like the mission statements and the mission vision and value, you know, forecasting and pieces that, that are part of like team building and those kind of things like that too. Like there is, you know, like, like there is the, there is the PR side of what values are. And I mean whether it's a non profit, whether it's even governments or whether it's, it's private sector, there definitely is, you know, like, it's important to know why you exist, what is important to you, what do you, you know, what are the guiding principles that make your decisions for you and everything else like that too. And again, there's the idea of lots of people who actually, and even lots of, it's common in different, in different generations in the workforce. The importance of a corporations or an organization's, core values and their mission and the reason why they exist and what they find important is often a huge component to talent attraction and retention and everything like that too. There's a lot of people very drawn to organizations because of their values, because of what they stand for, because of how they, what they prioritize. And it's important for us to talk about the actual core values that people form and what they actually truly think are important and talk about, as you kind of said, the HR poster, the PR campaigns that exist as something that is, we have to have something. So we're choosing this or we need to have something. So we had a three day retreat and we came up with these ideas and this is what we're going to put on our wall, what we're going to put on our letterhead and everything else like that too. I mean you need to tell people about them. But it is important for us to kind of talk about the fact that there is actual core values that organizations want to, want to operate by and there also is the PR side of it as well. Right.
[JAMES]:Yeah. I want to follow up on a couple things that you said. Yes, we absolutely need to tell people about them, but it can't stop there. And that's one of my chief irritants and complaints when we talk about mission, vision and values in general. I have not been subtle about my dislike for mission vision value statements in the past. there are some really good ways to actually approach that. And you know, if I'm being honest, one of our partners has actually been able to change my mind around that because the way that they frame it from kind of the more the the ev. Proof, the the value, proof rather than proposition standpoint. But what I wanted to really capitalize on was your statement around talent, acquisition. Because the way that we talk about who we are, what we stand for, what this organization is trying to do in our community, in the world, people connect with mission, with values. They want to work in an environment where they see their own values reflected by the organization. The problem is that humans are very, very adept at picking out inconsistencies. We are very adept at picking at identifying hypocrisy. And when your stated values do not correlate one to one with the experience that people have when they start working with you, you are, you are starting off the employment relationship on a feeling that this is a lie. If your first experience walking into an organization as an employee is, well, this isn't m. They say that they value open and honest communication, but every time that I try to share my opinion, I'm shot down. Right? That is a contradiction. That is a hypocrisy that only adds to institutional betrayal and dissatisfaction in general.
[COBY]:No, you're right. Because I mean, sometimes it's a matter of saying that, you know, like, like let's talk a little bit about the kind of values that are out there and that are common. I mean, some of them are. Are like. Some. Like. Some values are individual words, like we value integrity, we value trust, we value inclusion, we value loyalty. You know, and those things like that. And again, in a good description or sort of good, like defining your values, it's important for you to actually say what that means, what that looks like, right? I mean, not just to have a single word. I mean, if your values are no. Are no more than just a couple words that are not defined or not, you know, like, you know, able to kind of like narrow down into like some type of. Like what that means, you know, broadly or kind of. Or like, you know, even just what that means beyond just the general dictionary term. you know, if you don't have. If you just have those single words, then Then your values are probably just, you know, for show anyway. But some of them are like, you know, like, their values are often defined in their. Like their tagline. Like there are some companies that. Especially ones that are very much, you know, that are, Again, like we see it with a lot of nonprofits that have very clear, you know, like. Like a very clear mission. And their values are defined by that. And it's in their description of who they are and why they exist. And we see that with corporations that have a sense of like, corporate responsibility. They put those pieces in there and again, those that have, sort of the acronyms. Skipping, me right now. Is it esg? Yeah, yeah, the ESG stuff. those pieces around our environmental and our social and our governance. Trying to like, you know, again, attach the corporate responsibility, you know, maybe pillar of their organization to their, To kind of their company description. You know, those types of things are. Are doing a better job of actually kind of trying to make. Make. Make their values more tangible. And I think. And that's a big part of it is that if you're. I guess the first answer to the question of how do our, core values is to make them not a nebulous word that has no definition but actually make like, attach them to. How does that. How do these terms kind of like in. Are embedded in your corporate descriptions and people understand what you mean by them.
[JAMES]:And this kind of goes back to one of. One of the reasons I've always just. I've never connected with the whole mission, vision, value piece as. Act as actually meaningful or important because the way that they tend to get generated, in a corporate environment that, you know, they'll the executive team will go off on a three day retreat somewheres, have a great time. You know, yes, they will work and they will come back with a mission vision value statement that gets promoted through social media. It, you know, if they have done a good job it gets incorporated into their operational strategy. You know it gets filtered through the workplace. But I've seen, rarely do I see that translate to changes in actions, changes on with how people experience the work on a day by day function. There's an execution breakdown that happens with mission vision value statement that I think is really unfortunate and incredibly frustrating to experience because it goes back to that hypocrisy, standpoint. And I don't know this, this is probably a generalization but there are few things that I can think of that will destroy your credibility with your staff, with the people who actually make your organization function faster than hypocrisy.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:When you say one thing and do another, especially when that, when you talk a good game about we value. Our core values are inclusion and professional development and collaboration and we value diversity and diverse opinions. And yet people are not free to speak up.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:Managers shut down conversation. There's never an opportunity to collaborate with others. You work in silos or even worse in strongholds that are competing for resources and people are pitted against each other. Right. This, the way in which you, your organization operates are your values. It's not what you say, it is what you do. And I would, yeah, I would go so far as to say that what you are operationalizing your values right now. You are operationalizing your values based on the policies that you have in place and based on how your leadership, how your management put those policies into practice on a day daily action. If those are not the values that you promote to the world then you are a hypocrite and your organization and people are likely seeing may not. It's not intentional.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:I mean that is harsh.
[COBY]:Yeah, I'm going to respect a little bit on that because you're, you're right like I mean you kind of said this in your intro. The way I always describe it is I say that your culture and your values are in reality they're what you tolerate day to day. And it's not about what you say, it's about what you tolerate. And to me that's always been kind of how I've described that in the companies that we work with and everything else like that too. But the thing is that there's Lots of. To give organizations a little bit of grace and a little bit of credit. There is kind of. There's lots of opportunities for the disconnect between the core values and your mission statement and the. And. And everything like that to your daily actions and your, you know, and everything else like that as well. But, to kind of say that, to kind of, you know, to kind of label it, say that if there is this disconnection, you're a hypocrite is a little bit hyperbolic.
[JAMES]:it is a little bit hyperbolic, but hypocrisy does not need intent.
[COBY]:No, no. And.
[JAMES]:Right. And the, the disconnect between what you say and what you do.
[COBY]:Maybe, maybe what I'm going to say.
[JAMES]:Harsh. It is a harsh term and it's not the best way to frame it.
[COBY]:I think it's a matter of, I think what you're actually saying is that, It's not necessarily that you're saying you are a hypocrite. It's. You're saying your staff, the people who are affected by it, feel that you are a hypocrite.
[JAMES]:They. They feel the disconnect. They can identify. They. They see what you. They hear what you say and they see what you do. And those two things do not align.
[COBY]:Right. So that the perspective that they're taking away from that is that of being hypocritical. And that's a fair statement. That's 100%. Because that's what it looks like to them. Right. Because, I mean, like, let's be clear, like we talked about, In, I think it was two episodes ago, we talked about, nepotism and favoritism. And how many organizations have we seen, we've worked with, we've heard about that have like, integrity as one of their core values. And then we. And then. But they're riddled with nepotism. and that's, that's.
[JAMES]:And cronyism and favoritism. Yeah.
[COBY]:And even when, even. Even when, like we say, you know, when. When nepotism is something that's not. Again, it's not necessarily, necessarily a horrible thing on it. On its own. It. It's that, it opens up a door to lots of. Of terrible situations. But when a company that values integrity, part of integrity is, is things need to look as good as they are, as they actually are. And if you have. And nepotism looks bad unless you are actively trying to mitigate the optics of nepotism and by putting in lots of, structures and lots of transparency if you're not doing that. But the nepotism is needed because it is the right people. You're again, we talked about this with like, you know, organizations that are first nations owned is a good example. A lot of them are higher from their, from their communities and so there's lots of family involved. It's just the reality of, of that. And then when they have things like integrity as part of their mission statement, which is pretty common thing, but they don't mitigate the optics of this hypocrital, then they're not living up to the integrity, which again, people pick up on that very quickly and people will start to feel like it's hypocrisy. And that is kind of just the natural consequences of not understanding this question about operationalizing core values.
[JAMES]:Yeah, yeah. all of that. Like what has to change is actions.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:If your actions do not change, then what are we doing here, folks?
[COBY]:Yeah, well, I mean the thing is that if a value is only real if it changes a decision that would have been made differently otherwise. Right. Like if your value does not lead to a different action, then then it doesn't. Is not a real value to your operations. Like you said it perfectly in the intro and I think, and I think that we really need to go back and emphasize. You said that we need to start treating our values like an operating constraints. Yeah, that's exactly it. It has. It's the, it's the constraint. It's the box that we need to be putting our decision making in. And if, and that has to be the filter or part of the testing or part of the, the, the pieces
[JAMES]:that part of the it's part of the evaluation. It's part of how we know whether or not we are doing a good job. Like if it's not doing values. Values need to be incorporated into how we define success in not only for the organization, but for roles as well for an organization. If we say that we value, sustainability and yet pursue opportunities that actively run counter to that. How are we actually living our values? If we say that we value inclusion or we value collaboration and we never give people an opportunity to actually work together, to break outside of silos and to break down barriers to feel like they belong, then how are our actions actually mirroring what we say? These are operational. These are things that we can operationalize and we can enshrine values. The, the actions that are associated with our values as KPIs.
[COBY]:Well, and that's just it. Like where I want to make it clear where we're going to go in this episode. I probably should have done that probably earlier on. But we're not just going to rant about people that do it wrong. I mean we are going to do this.
[JAMES]:Although I am going to rant about people who do it wrong. I mean we're not only going
[COBY]:to do that I suppose is the
[JAMES]:best way to put it that's core to my values.
[COBY]:So we are going to just talk about kind of what this looks like and kind of where the breakdowns happen and what we should be doing. But then we are going to get into. We have a two phase operation framework so people can use to actually operationalize Core by. We are going somewhere with this conversation. We swear. even though this does sound like we are just starting off with giving James the opportunity to rant. but we should also kind of make it kind of clear too that again the action piece is a big part of it. If it's not again changing decisions. That's a big part of it. But we also need to make it very clear that this breakdown tends to exist at the different levels of an organization. Like the failure to this when it does fail it often starts the executive level. They've defined values that are usually just abstract. Then they are given those abstract values to the management level. Then the managers will understand them but maybe not have clarity on how that affects day to day decision making. Then the staff will execute the their daily work but are often three levels removed from where the. From where the value was created as where the vision of it. Of those values, the point of those values, the how it's supposed to look like. And they're often not giving. If they're not given that then they often are doing business that is counter. And so so it. The failure happens at all at those three levels. But it's something that you know there's opportunities for solutions when we operationalize them at those three levels as well.
[JAMES]:Yeah. Yeah. I think what needs to come through at all three levels is the shift from we need. We need to break away from the PR warm and fuzzies.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:like that's. That's where the root of my frustration lives is that values are. Values have to be acted upon.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:And if they only ever live in statements. If they only ever live in strategy. Yeah. I mean we, how often do we talk about how important strategy is? And I'm not knocking strategy because it is critical but if your values never make it beyond the Document right to the experience. That that is a problem.
[COBY]:You're right. And the thing is that because, I understand when organizations see the creation of their values, their mission, their vision, all those kind of pieces like that as being aspirational, I get that these are things we want to aspire to. But the problem is that I almost feel like, I mean that seeing them as aspirational and, and putting them up there, like putting them on the walls and putting them on our, our letterhead and putting them on our website and putting them on our social media, it kind of feels like these are the magic words for a spell. That if we say them enough times that they'll. Something will, magic will happen and we will have achieved them. But, but it's something that. But unless they know, again, unless they see them as those operating constraints, the system. The system, the systemic or, sorry, the systematic, constraints, unless they're there to guide decision making, unless they're there to be the catalyst for action, they are nothing more than a fantasy.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't write them down because we should. We should write them down. We should, our values should, be embedded in everything that we discuss. Right? They. It should. They should be clearly stated on our websites and in our policies and in our documents and in our communications. But it can't stop there. So I think we want to move. We've talked. I, I need to get off of the what people are doing wrong because I can, I can sit there all day long if you let me. let's talk a little bit about how do we actually operationalize these things? What is the framework we can use to make it better?
[COBY]:Okay, that's good. So move on. Yes. So we have two, like a two part operational framework that we're going to suggest the organizations consider when they're trying to operationalize their values. And one thing I do want to say before we really jump into that is just to say that one of the things that is also a common roadblock that probably will make these operational frameworks far less effective than they should be is if your organization has these noble core values, this noble mission, but it is a very transactional relationship that the ordician has with the employees. Then it's re. Then these pieces are going to make our, two part framework really difficult. Because if you're just. Employees are just. We're just, you're just commodities that we are trading money for work and you are not people. And the only value working here is the paycheck and if that's the kind of place that you work in, these are suggested framework is probably going to be very, very hard to actually work on because again, because the problem is not just misalignment. The problem is actually far more far more systemic. So I just want to kind of put that out there that this, this will work for organizations that truly try to create this desire to actually live their values. But if you're, if you're just looking for the PR piece and you have the transactional relationship with your employees, this stuff is not going to make that much of a difference for you because you've got a lot more work to do.
[JAMES]:If they disagree with us on this, they probably disagree with us on every single thing we've ever stated in this podcast.
[COBY]:That's true.
[JAMES]:They're probably not listening, but probably not listening. They would have tuned me out a long time ago.
[COBY]:Absolutely. Like the rest of us should have. Okay, so let's talk about the first one. The first one is what we'd call the decision gate test. So this is the idea of the concept like let's say your core value is integrity M. Then you need to create a gate, a decision gate about where you're going to lose money or a client because of it. When is this going to be what shuts down opportunities? When is this going to be something that you take a loss on because of you are willing to hold to that value firmly. So it's really about when do you make a hard decision that is probably going to affect your bottom line. It's probably going to affect loss of opportunity. It's when are you going to shut that stuff down to live through your value?
[JAMES]:Yeah. And this is a big one. It goes to the values as actions piece. Right. Like to the idea that there needs to be some, there needs to be some consequence.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:Right. Like if, if there's no consequence attached to the violation of a core value, then what are we doing? How, so making sure that we are clear. When you are crafting your values statements, when you are crafting, when you are identifying what your organization believes are, it has internalized as its core values. It you can run it just like personally when we like with our own decision making. individually you kind of need to consider where your hard stops are before you get into a crisis situation.
[COBY]:Yeah. Or even, or before you even kind of create a bit of like a ah, dependence on something or a longev. Like, like the reason why I say that is because like one of the things that we common see is when we work with like small SMEs, like is a lot of them will say you know we are a local business and we want to really support other local businesses. And then they are trying to get kind of like they're trying to procure pieces for their manufacturing, whatever it is and they can get a whole lot better deal from China than they can from the factory two towns over. And it's a matter of like well does you know this is a decision gate test. Is that are you actually going to walk the walk on this and potentially have smaller margins or are you going to not hold that value and go with this deal?
[JAMES]:What are you willing to sacrifice in order to live up to your values?
[COBY]:Right?
[JAMES]:And that's, that's the root of it. Are you willing to pay a slightly a higher price for an input that comes from a community locally that you know, supports local employment if that is one of your core values or because let's be realistic in North America generally it is more, it tends to be more expensive to source locally than it does to source many of our inputs from, from other markets. So how do we live our values? If we say that we are we support our local communities which is, I mean you talked about ESG earlier and that is a common phrase and alignment in that type of environment that we support our local communities through responsible stewardship and environmental processes and in the way in which we are we govern ourselves. But that also needs to extend to the way in which we ah procure and source ah inputs into our businesses.
[COBY]:M. Yeah. Because I mean like you know again environmental one is another great example. Like you know when you're trying to again source materials or trying to find partners or pieces like that. And if companies are you know, if even if the company itself that you're going to source materials from says a lot of the right things as well and they value it too but the cost to get their product from their factory to your factory requires jets and boats and trucks and all this kind of things like that. You know, Whereas for slightly smaller margin you can go for somewhere else that will have a much smaller environmental footprint, then that is that decision gate test that you need to be willing to look at. And it is something that you again what also is a balancing act is that if you cannot afford to, to have your. To go with that local business is because the cost is, is so much higher or you can't or, or you can't afford these pieces. Then we're not saying you tank your business to follow the values you, maybe you need to realign your values and maybe, maybe it is a matter of saying, you know what, maybe our values. We're going to define supporting communities in this way in our first few years and then maybe in the future we're going to try to do this again. Having, again, working towards your ultimate goal is completely fine, but part of it is defining that and creating an action and creating action items and constraints around how you're going to live that value of eventually or within a strategy or within a five year plan or whatever. Right.
[JAMES]:You know, the progress, not perfection.
[COBY]:Thank you. That's a great way to put it.
[JAMES]:And this is this, I see this as a, and again, I, man, I'm harsh today. but I see this as an excuse, often use it as an excuse that we can't do it perfectly so we're not going to do it at all.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:And that it's a bit of a cop out. I, I understand. Like there, there can be a legitimate thought process around that. Like take the example that you just used. You know, we can't afford right now to support locally because it will make our products uncompetitive in the marketplace because of X, Y and Z. That's an, that is a, an operational constraint and a conflicting of values that you will need to sort through. True. But just because you can't do everything today doesn't mean that you shouldn't do anything today.
[COBY]:Yeah, exactly. But also part of that is again, even if you are reliant on stuff from overseas or you are procuring pieces from Amazon rather than from your local supply chain or whatever, or whatever it is. But you know, say, you know, this is where we are because the operational realities of where we are today, but our goal is, is to reduce that by X percentage in X number of years and work towards it. That is still a great way for you to try to operationalize your value. It's nothing wrong.
[JAMES]:And that is a, that is a fantastic narrative that if you, because I mean if you are talking about this as a core value and you're trying to operationalize it and your teams are aware of it rightfully so you'd probably have some people who would question why are we doing something that appears to be in conflict with our core values. You have a narrative, you have a reasonable explanation. You have a. And what's clear is that you have given it some thought. It's not Just a. Well, I didn't think about our values because they don't actually mean that much to me. It's a. We evaluated this and we are still committed to this as a value. And here's how we are advancing that value in this particular situation. It conflicts with the ability for the organization to actually remain competitive. Right. If you actually have a legitimate rationale, don't be afraid to use it.
[COBY]:Absolutely. So I think so to give you, our listener, a little bit of homework, I'm going to.
[JAMES]:Because who doesn't love homework?
[COBY]:Exactly. I'm going to ask you to think about kind of like one like hard decision that was made because of your organization, your job, trying to adhere to your values. Were you potentially lost money, maybe didn't make the best, you know, tactical, profitable business decision based on you sticking to your values. And I, and I, I say just try to think of one example. And if you can't name at least one that your company or you, or depending on what your role is, has done that in the last six months, there may m. Be a situation where you are living in a situ. You're living in an organization that is not operationalizing their values. So that's your homework is to try and find that one example. All right, let's move on to our second system. So, this is what we call the Values as action guiding system. So what this is, is this is when we move away from our values just being part of our pr, cultural aspiration material and actually being a defining component to our key performance indicators and really understanding that how our values define what our KPIs for our company are and even for the, for the employees that work in the company are.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And let's, let's continue on the track of the example that we used in the last bit of the procurement piece. You know, local versus offshore. This can be. This value can be enshrined. And the constraint and the tension between this value and the ability of the organization to remain profitable can be actually enshrined in how people do their jobs. Right. We can have KPIs. so if you have a procurement process or procurement department or someone who is responsible primarily for the procurement of inputs, the way in which they are evaluated, the way in which that they are supported and the way, and the way that you support them to make decisions. So if there's some sort of evaluating, criteria or matrix that helps them to understand when the values are in conflict, how do they Actually move forward without having to constantly ask permission for every single decision. Enshrine it in policy, enshrine it in the way that the organ and the way that the position is evaluated and give them the tools to be able to make the decisions. So maybe it's a, for your organization, maybe you're evaluating the, whatever widget input we are talking about. Maybe you want to create a matrix that evaluates it based on a certain threshold increase. We are willing to pay 9.2% more for a local product than like, so that there's some actual something concrete that people can use to help guide their decisions to ensure that they are staying in alignment with your values. And then you are evaluating them on how well that they have actually maintained that system. that is a way of actually operationalizing the value of supporting local communities.
[COBY]:Yeah. And another example of how the values as action guiding system can work when you're looking at specific job roles. So a lot of companies have excellent customer service or something like that as one of their core values. But then how are they measuring the individual employee's success? Are they measuring it by the number of of, of customers serves and trying to, and then trying to, and then trying to limit how many like you know, like, like we are trying to get our customer service like on the phones down from like, you know, from three minutes to two to two minutes. And so if that's how they're measuring success in that role, that's going against customer service piece where instead of it being a number of customers served, it's number of like customer issues resolved might actually be a better KPI percentage of
[JAMES]:resolved versus unresolved. I mean there has to be some limitations on time. But if your only limitation is on time, you know, if it's all about just volume and getting people off the phone and onto the next point problem, then how are you actually living that value of excellent customer service? Because excellent customer service means that your customers are getting the treatment and the service and the resolutions that they need.
[COBY]:Yeah, exactly. Or I guess a big part of like knowing. Okay, so how do we know if we're following the values as action guiding system? Well, largely kind of what we said before about you know, your values are what you tolerate, but also what you incentivize and reinforce. Right?
[JAMES]:Yes.
[COBY]:Because I mean if, if you're, what are the behaviors and what are the actions and the decisions that you are incentivizing or you are reinforcing. Because like if, if a collaboration is a, is A is a core value is one of your core values. But your compensation models or your like project structures are designed to reward solidarity work. Like if you're pitting people against each other or it's a matter like only one person can get that sale, bonus or those types of things like that too. If that's what your infrastructure is designed for, then you are not, you're not valuing collaboration at all. Your system is designed to value competition and you're, and you're fighting your actual values. Right?
[JAMES]:Yeah. Evaluation and reward. If you people will default to doing what will keep their job and what's going to make the money. Right? So if you tell people that they are evaluated, in one in a particular way and that they are rewarded for meeting that type of evaluation, that's what they're going to do. Right. this is why like operationalizing value needs to permeate everything that we do. Not just the sign on the wall, but how people are evaluated, the key performance indicators, the metrics that we use to determine success, how we even describe what success looks like. All of these pieces need to be in place in order to actually move from statement to operations.
[COBY]:So one thing this reminds me of was I think it was last year, I was on a podcast, I was on the Dear Corporate Love Stories podcast with our friend Becky and her co host Matt was talking about how, how the performance management systems often work in a lot in a lot of corporate retail businesses and that they can only like, they're only allowed to give like one person a five out of five and, and, and, or things like that like, or that there's. Because like there's only so much that they can do for bonuses. So only once only one person gets to be in the top one and then only so many get to be in the like, like it's very much limited that way. So, so it is like, so.
[JAMES]:And then that is so dumb. Yeah.
[COBY]:But then, but then these organizations that have this, only one person can get the, the, the, the good bonus and others can get the okay bonuses and some can get the man bonuses and then some get the no bonuses, but there's, there's a limit on those. And then, but then one. But then a lot of these companies have the core value is teamwork.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:So yeah, so I got highly, highly competitive, yeah. Like really reinforcing a cutthroat culture while
[JAMES]:we value teamwork, but we're only going to reward you based on your 1. Only one person gets the reward, regardless of whether or not you all worked towards it, regardless of whether or not you've got 10 people who are doing phenomenal on their role, only one person gets it. That is a contradiction. That is like. I'll go back to it. I will use the word again. It's hypocrisy.
[COBY]:Yeah. And again, the thing that always drives us crazy is when we is. We hate the concept of performative solutions and performative actions.
[JAMES]:Right?
[COBY]:And that's really what this is, that at the end of the day, if you are not operationalizing your core value, if you are not really engaging, you're not trying to live your mission, vision and value, you're creating mission, vision and value theater. And that is just. You're performing for the masses as part of your PR or as, as a good sales pitch for your, customer acquisition strategy. But it's. It's just a thin veneer or there's, there's nothing behind it. It is just for show. And then you have these, again, cutthroat cultures that value teamwork and all these other ridiculous pieces like that too.
[JAMES]:Right?
[COBY]:So, I mean, it is something that, when these things are directly in contradiction, then it's, it is just, you know, like it is.
[JAMES]:People see it and people feel it, and it, it affects the way that they approach their work, it affects the way that they feel about their job, it affects the way that they feel about their co workers, and it affects the way that they feel about your company.
[COBY]:Well, it affects the way they deal with your customers. I mean, if you were in an organization that was just so contradictory in what they say are important and then what you experience every day and then, then your. How. How are you going to have enough motivation and enthusiasm to actually want to bring your whole self or even your best self to work or provide your best work. Right? It's just, you know, like, it just, it just compounds the problems because if you're not operationalizing the things you say are important, there's. The institutional betrayal part is really just what is seen as, as. This is just a company that you can't trust. It's a company that is. It doesn't. Doesn't. Isn't their words not any good? This company that you don't want to be a part of, and I'm gonna only do the bare minimum to,
[JAMES]:keep my job, my job while I look for something else.
[COBY]:There you go. And that's that transactional relationship that we mentioned before. That, these things. If, that, if, if you, if you really just want that transactional piece. These things aren't going to work. But then your problems are not going to go away. They're just going to be deeper and deeper rooted and you're going to becoming more and more hypocritical in the way that you do things. So I really hope that these two operating systems, the decision gate test. Where in the value is action guiding system are two things that you listening, feel like, okay, these are two things we could potentially really actually do something with because these are again, really important to provide that integrity, that transparency. But these are things that are really just good business practices. That's the other thing we should really kind of be clear on too, is that these are great business practices. These are not necessarily going to be the ones that allow you to make the most money in the short term, but these are going to be the ones that allow you to create, a company that people are drawn to customers and employees and that will actually create the type of business that people will want to be a part of and that eventually will allow for greater growth and greater scalability in the long term. And again, if you only want the short term profits, then maybe these won't be for you. But if you're trying to create something that will have a longer term benefit, easier, easier time with customer acquisition, easier time with talent acquisition, you know, then this is easier time with marketing and pr, because this stuff is real. Then it's gonna, you have to put the work into it. But these can be, these can be yours if the price is right.
[JAMES]:excellent. Cool.
[COBY]:All right, so I think that about does it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access to video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[ANNOUNCER]:For more information on topics like these, don't forget to Visit us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high pressure productivity, increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, aversion to the sound of James voice, desire to find a better podcast…
People on this episode
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
The Human Side of Business Podcast
Ange MacCabe, CEO Intuity Performance
Circle Up & Get REAL Podcast
Jodee Bock