Sharing Your Values at Work: A How-To

Several years ago, I had a new leader join the HR team. In our first meeting, he sat us down for a super-casual, get-to-know-him talk. He gave us his background and bio, and when he got to why he was hired to lead our team, he said, "I was brought in to blow shit up." He then proceeded to tell us how he would blow said shit up and what his vision for the future was.

I pulled him aside a few days after the meeting and told him, gently, that we had built all the shit he was planning to blow up. From scratch. As a team.

What I learned about his values in that one interaction was that he did not value tradition, the current culture, or even tact, but that he was all about innovation, getting things done by any means, and forcing things through.

We were not necessarily a match right out of the gate.

But it didn't mean we couldn't find common ground. Over time, I learned he also valued competence, independence, and family, as I did, though we both defined them somewhat differently.

My old boss intentionally shared his values with us in that very first meeting. He didn't do it the way I would (because, of course, we value different things), but it was clear. Almost none of us agreed with him at first (and some never did), so he had a bumpy start to leading the team. Below are my suggestions for sharing your values in a more crafted way so you're likely to see more buy-in from your team.

Live your values with concrete actions and behaviors.

According to Chip and Dan Heath in one of my favorite books, Made to Stick, abstract ideas don't stick. It's much harder to agree on the definition of "integrity" or "collaboration" than it is to agree on the definition of something more concrete, like "desk" or "meeting." So instead of starting a meeting by saying, “I value transparency," share context with your team about a decision before it's final. You can add on an "I'm doing this because I value transparency," if you feel the need, but people will remember what you've done far longer than what you've said.

Especially if you find yourself in an unpleasant situation, your actions matter. Instead of saying, “I value respect,” you can cut a gossipy conversation off before it gets started by saying, "I prefer not to talk about people who aren't in the room. Can we change the subject?"

If people can’t observe it, they won’t absorb it.

Use moments, not speeches

In the end, values define what actions you will and won't take. They inform your decision-making. So you don’t need a formal declaration about what matters. You can just share your values in real-time decision-making. When I came back from maternity leave the first time, I came back part-time. I told my team that I was leaving early to spend time with my baby and that I wouldn't be checking my email. If they needed me, they should text. And if I didn't respond, they should call. And when one of my teammates' grandma got sick, I made sure they could work from home and leave early as much as possible. Because it wasn't just my family that mattered.

Be consistent under pressure

Anyone can demonstrate values when things are easy. What signals your values clearly is what you do when it’s inconvenient. Do you cut corners when the pressure is on? Do you still give credit when you're competing for visibility? Do you still speak up when it might create friction?

Inconsistency in behavior is what makes people hate talk about values.

Tell brief stories

Stories make values stick far more than principles do. (Just ask the Heath brothers.) I remember a creative director telling a story about a woman who cut a ham in half every time she put it in the oven. She'd been doing it that way her whole life, and one day her daughter asked her why she did that. "I don't know," she replied. "It's just what my mom used to do." So they called her mom, who laughed and laughed. "Mom, why did you cut the ham in half? Does it cook faster? Make it juicier? What's the secret?"

The mom wiped away her tears of laughter and said, "My oven was just too small to cook a full ham."

His point with the story was that creative teams can get stuck doing the same thing over and over again because there was, at one point, a good reason for it, but that reason has long since disappeared.

Stories give context without sounding preachy and they help people understand why you operate the way you do.

Recognize what you value

What you recognize in others signals your values just as much as your own behavior. “I appreciated how you looped in the team early. That kind of transparency makes a big difference to me.” Or, "thanks for challenging that assumption. That’s exactly the kind of thinking we need.”

People quickly learn what matters by what gets acknowledged.

Make tradeoffs visible

Values show up not just in what you do, but also in what you choose not to do. I once worked with an in-house tech team to build a performance review portal. This was not their regular line of business, but they were great partners. It took us quite a bit longer to build with the in-house team than it would have with an outside vendor, and when we asked why we were doing it this way, we were told that they didn't want to pull in a vendor because our own team understood the agency culture better, and having something that fit the culture was more important. (Also: it was cheaper.)

Want help identifying your values or crafting some stories? Drop me a line!