In my first couple of jobs, company values were posted on the wall for all to read. I found this somewhat heavy-handed, or akin to Soviet era propaganda exhorting the masses to be inspired and act appropriately. The values seemed like something detached from the everyday workings of the company; they were trotted out from time to time, but did not have much impact one way or the other.

Over the years since then, my perspective has changed, and I’ve come to understand the importance of defining and communicating values.

When we first talked about codifying our values several years ago, we concluded it was worth the effort because it would present a clear message to prospective employees about the kind of work environment we had, and the kind of people we wanted to work with. At that point we had already been in existence for a number of years, and had built up an implicit set of values. We wanted to hire people who shared those values, and concluded the best way to do that was to make the values explicit. That made it clear to potential employees what kind of work environment we had and wanted to foster. The result has been wonderful; we’ve consistently hired bright, ambitious, nice people who enjoy being around others like them. That’s made us stronger as a company and helped us retain talent for many years.

Values are important for more than recruiting, though. They also help keep a company on track. A company, after all, is made up of individuals, whose individual acts sometimes stray from the company’s stated values. When that happens in a company with strongly held values, employees will start to notice and speak up. Managers can then step in, reinforce desired behavior, and keep the company from diverging from its values.

At Ipswitch we recently updated our values, shortening and simplifying the list. Here is the result:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Teamwork
• Seek Diversity
• Maximize Leverage
• Minimize Bureaucracy
• Life Balance
• Community Impact

One question that comes up in thinking about a company’s values is why all companies don’t have the same set. After all, how many companies would not consider honesty and integrity to be important? But when you think about it, companies really do vary quite a bit in culture, and each culture reflects a different set of values. Some companies focus on taking no prisoners (Microsoft, Oracle), others on technical innovation (Sony, Google), with many other variations.

Once values are defined, though, I’m still not a fan of plastering them throughout the workplace. The way values should be communicated is through the consistent action of managers, who should reinforce company values in all that they do, and in how they manage their staff. That’s what we strive to do, and we’re proud of the culture that results.

Posted by Roger Greene
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