Masonry Magazine October 2002 Page. 32
Strategic Value
shared values. This implies that even strategic alignment, which we know causes success, is dependent on values alignment.
Values-driven organizations win because they utilize leadership power properly. As Stephen Covey points out in "Principle-Centered Leadership," power in an organization has three forms that lead to different results:
Coercive Power-based on the fear that the leader can do harm to the follower; promotes ultra-reactivity among followers.
Utility Power based on leader and follower each offering something of value to the other; tends to foster individuality and situational ethics on the part of followers, still tends toward follower reactivity.
Principle-centered (or Values-centered) Power-based on the trust and respect earned by the leader over time; results in high follower proactivity.
So values-driven leaders enjoy more power and greater follower productivity, loyalty and teamwork. That permits them to implement more effectively the changes demanded by their strategies. Paraphrasing Covey, "The ability to make change is limited unless the leaders driving the change are secure in their values, and their values are fundamental values that do not change and are, therefore, not challenged by the change."
Defining your values
Hopefully, everything we have covered to this point motivates you to make sure your organization has a well-defined set of values at its core and is consistently living them out everywhere. Two related questions beg to be addressed.
What process should you use to clearly define your values and recognize them in your strategic planning?
How can you achieve alignment with the values throughout the organization?
Workable processes for initially defining your values are available in plenty of books. For example, check out the Mis-
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sion Statement and Goals sections in "Simplified Strategic Planning," by Robert Bradford and Peter Duncan.
Here we will limit ourselves to mentioning several key principles and techniques as follows:
Define no more than six values at the deepest, most fundamental level possible, without regard for how they match up with the outside environment; these are your Core Values.
Don't try to define your values using a democratic process; the top leaders have much greater weight in selecting the final set because they must authentically exemplify values that inspire their followers.
Once established, these Core Values should be subjected to two tests. The first test is the Credibility Test. Have the behaviors of you and your people inside and outside of the organization been consistent with these values over the past year? If not, are they really core and/or what must change?
The second test determines which individual values or combinations of values have particular strategic worth, in that they can provide sustainable competitive advantage. The technique, borrowed from page 86 of Simplified Strategic Planning, is the same as that used with Competencies to determine which are strategic.
Recognizing values in strategic planning
When you analyze and strategize your markets, be sure to consider the values dimension explicitly, looking for competitive openings within which you can leverage your distinguishing values.
Use your Core Values as a "gate" through which any new opportunity must pass. If an opportunity can't be structured in such a way to pass, dump it!
Deal with the strategic issue mentioned earlier, "Which customers and suppliers should you 'fire' because they don't fit your values?"
If your participation in a core market segment becomes too small due to a values conflict, challenge your values only to the extent of seeking a deeper, more timeless value or principle to replace the one that conflicts with your market. For example, a hallowed practice of making your product "super-rugged" may need to be challenged by a deeper value like "satisfying the customer."
Alignment of values within the organization
Famous quality guru Dr. W. Edwards Deming contends that quality, the result, is a function of quality, the process. The same can be said about values. Essentially the same principles and processes for aligning values within your organization apply where major changes are required as where you are simply trying to sustain your values at a high level. Interestingly, the process for changing values involves the same steps as farming.