How to achieve "value consistency"?

Wang Shi said in "My Change: 40 Years of Personal Modernization" that after starting a business, he realized that "uniqueness" or "unique values" are very important to a group. He believes that "like-mindedness" at the work level means that a person's "personality" and the "community" of a group are consistent in values. Therefore, "if the values ??are consistent, individuals will choose to join this group, and they will also get room to stretch their personalities within this group."

In business management practice and even daily life, we often talk about the term "value consistency". But if you think about it carefully, when people talk about "consistent values", they always seem to express it in a general and general tone, and sometimes it even feels a bit hollow and frivolous. I say this because I feel that no matter what kind of organization and under what circumstances, it is probably not an easy task for "all living beings" to truly achieve "unanimous values" in various shapes and forms. Based on this thinking, we will continue to do some exploration based on literature search.

1. Reaching "value consensus" is not an easy task

Why are people willing to achieve cultural identity and achieve "value consensus"? Edgar Schein believes in "Organizational Culture and Leadership" that human beings are always seeking stability, consistency and meaningful results, so culture can play a role, because culture generally moves in the direction of patterning and integration. Efforts to provide a clear and unambiguous "paradigm" for mankind. To put it simply, "individuals and groups will seek stability and meaning."

But Schein goes on to say: Where do these values ??and norms come from? How do we reach a consensus where each profession sees its own rules and values ??as correct? This is indeed not an easy task. Terrence Dill and Alan Kennedy also have a similar view in "Corporate Culture: Etiquette and Rituals in Corporate Life" (hereinafter referred to as "Corporate Culture"): "From a personal perspective, it is easy for us to understand Why people who actively espouse certain fundamental values ??are more likely to succeed, but our understanding of how those values ??work in a larger corporate environment is more difficult.” Yes, it is relatively simple for three or two entrepreneurs to achieve "value agreement", but as the number of employees increases, this matter becomes increasingly complex or even impossible.

The core reason why it is difficult to achieve "value consistency" is the issue of individual differences among employees. ? Robert Goffey and Gary Jones said in "Corporate Spirit: Four Corporate Cultures that Determine Success or Failure" that "most people do value justice, but people's definitions of justice are different." Hofstede and his sons also said in "Culture and Organization: The Power of Mental Software" that "individuals in the same department have greater differences in values ??than perceptions of department practice activities", "because values ??are personal , and organizational practice is shared”. Therefore, Deere and Kennedy specifically use "examine your own values" to warn employees in "New Corporate Culture: Reinvigorating the Workplace": What kind of company do you want to work for? How would you like to be remembered? What exactly do you support? Their conclusion is: "Don't be like a company and accept any values ??or beliefs that you can't do yourself." When searching for information, I saw two interesting stories, which can also be used as evidence for the above conclusion:

This ·Horowitz tells the story of Netscape in "What You Do Is What You Are: Strategies and Techniques for Building Corporate Culture": In the early years, Netscape "operated like a debate club, and everyone wanted to Competing in the process of making various decisions", the result of this is "often accomplishing nothing." In 1995, Jim Barksdale realized this problem when he took over as CEO, so he made up a popular little story and shared it with everyone at the employee meeting: We at Netscape have three rules: First, if you see a snake, just kill it Drop it; secondly, don't go back and tease the dead snake; thirdly, all chances look like dangerous snakes at first glance. Later, “the story spread by word of mouth and the face of the company changed.

People realized that killing snakes was more important than how they were killed, and the corporate culture soon began to overflow with a thriving energy. "

Charles Handy told the story of IBM's "runaway slaves" in "The Gods of Management: Today and the Future of Organizational Change": A team of software experts from IBM France left IBM to start a new company The leading engineer said they left to do more interesting work, and the most important reason was that he believed that in the future, "the real power will belong to these people who dominate the software, and IBM has always dominated." The world's information processing market", "IBM's French engineers cannot participate in the decision-making process at all", "They are nothing more than 'precious slaves'. Handy believes that this is the result of "the organization depriving individuals of their right to express their values ??and personality at work."

Since it is difficult to achieve "value consistency", the reality is What? In other words, what efforts can companies make to achieve or continue to pursue "value consistency"?

2. Find people with the same values ??

As mentioned above As stated in the book, finding people with the same values ??is the easiest way to achieve "value alignment." Richard Barrett said in "Liberating the Heart of the Company: Corporate Culture Assessment and Value Transformation Tools" that when employees are committed to achieving it. When they share a vision and hold the same values, “they will come together and work hard for the common good. They participate in collective learning and form a high degree of loyalty to the enterprise." John Cotter and James Heskett said in "Corporate Culture and Business Performance" that it is more "process-based": At the beginning, a group of like-minded people reached a new goal Values, their actions will have positive consequences, "not only strengthening their own new values ??and new business behaviors, but also attracting others to participate." In this way, "over and over again, a new corporate culture will be formed. ".

Based on this thinking, companies first pay special attention to finding people with "consistent values" when recruiting. Yang Guoan said of Ali in "The Yang Triangle of Organizational Capabilities: The Secret to Sustainable Growth of Enterprises", "In order to ensure that the employees recruited by the company are consistent with the company's values, the role of the 'smell officer' is particularly emphasized during the screening process, and different questions are asked to see whether the candidate company has the same values." In cooperation with Li Bo and others. In another book "The Gene of Change: How to Innovate Strategies, Build Teams, and Improve Combat Effectiveness (Practice)", Yang Guoan cited the example of 58.com, "In terms of employee recruitment, 58 focuses on finding talented colleagues. Vision man. For positions at a certain level, a cultural interview session is set up, which is composed of HRBP and veteran employees who have worked for more than three years to evaluate the degree of matching between the applicant's values ??and the company's values. The scoring items of values ??can veto the interview results." He said that with the basis of "consistent values" and after finding these outstanding talents, these companies emphasize self-driving and self-management. "When employees have more When we rely on a strong sense of mission and recognize that what the company is doing can change the world and be of great benefit to society, we will have great passion and common values."

In the guidance of values In terms of employee recruitment, Four Seasons Hotel's practices deserve more records:

Isadore Sharp said in "Four Seasons Hotel Business Philosophy", "When recruiting, we consider more about character and character than Focus on traditional resumes and professional skills." "Training cannot change their inner attitudes or develop their sense of responsibility and initiative." Sharp gave three examples:

Before the opening of the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago, They interviewed 150,000 people for 500 jobs. The candidates all went through 4 or 5 interviews, and the last one was personally interviewed by the general manager, Sharp said. An expensive process," "Because the hiring process is rigorous, we generally don't lay off employees. It also sends a morale-boosting message to all employees, old and new, that we think they are very important."

When the Maui Hotel in Hawaii was recruiting employees, “many people who came to apply had hotel experience, but we don’t need this experience. They are like bad habits that are easy to learn but not easy to change. So, We employ many people who do heavy physical work in sugar cane fields or pineapple fields, and we feel that such people will value clean work, nutritious meals, and a healthy and comfortable working environment with a constant temperature throughout the year."

Once, Sharp dined with Osman Berkman, the owner of the Four Seasons Hotel in Istanbul, and his wife. Mrs. Berkman asked Sharp where he found these hotel employees. Sharp said they were all locals, but Mrs. Berkman did not believe it. Sharp explained to Mrs. Berkman, "We always hire people with the right attitude, which is what we do when we recruit employees for new hotels. Then we create a good working environment for them so that they can make the best use of their skills." "This approach works well in many countries when given opportunities."

3. Spreading values ??within the enterprise

In the construction of corporate culture, most enterprises regard the shaping and dissemination of values ??as the "top priority". Chinese enterprises generally regard this type of The activity is called "Cultural Promotion". From the perspective of value dissemination, this is indeed an important job, but "unfortunately", some companies regard it as the "only" job and try to use top-down "ideological education" or even "thought transformation" to "Inner moral improvement" to achieve the purpose of "cultural construction" is not easy to accept. How to “promote and implement” values? Look at these sayings and practices that I could find.

1. Propose clear, clear, and non-contradictory values

Schein (ibid.) believes that organizational values ??must be carefully discerned: Which ones are consistent with underlying assumptions? Which ones are ideologies or organizational philosophies? What values ??are reasonable but merely idealistic about the future? Sometimes, he said, organizations have contradictory or even "conflicting" values, such as "a company claiming to treat shareholders, employees and consumers equally, or claiming to ensure high quality while keeping costs low." Schein believes that this often "leads group members to a feeling that they understand fragments of the culture, but have not yet truly grasped it."

In "Win", Welch recommended that companies "concretely and clearly state their values." He said, "When I first became CEO, I was very concerned about the vague and cryptic statements I issued. He feels quite guilty about values, such as "face reality" and "achieve excellence". He believes that "these clichés sound good, but it is difficult to provide a concrete description of the action plan."

2. Through continuous discussion. Create *** Consciousness

When Howard Schultz introduced the communication of Starbucks values ????in "Injecting Heart: A Cup of Coffee Makes the Starbucks Legend", he said that they will send a draft of values ??to every employee of Starbucks. Ask them to make modifications based on their comments. At the same time, a consulting company is hired to build a team from front-line employees, so that they can come together from their respective positions to discuss relevant issues and make suggestions. Most importantly, Starbucks established a "mission". If employees see decisions made by management that are inconsistent with the mission statement, they can report to the "mission review" organization.

Welch (ibid.) said, "In issues of values "Every member of the company should have the opportunity to express their opinion." Although this is not easy to do in larger companies, "you can still use company-wide meetings, training courses, and other similar means to try to Maybe you can let people express their opinions more often, and you can also use the company intranet to solicit broader opinions." Welch particularly emphasized the participation of leaders. If "you are not willing to participate in this interactive process, then you should feel ashamed." If you want to pursue a set of values ??and action plans that you can truly understand and accept, then you must personally participate in company-wide discussions."

3. Use the results of corporate development to continuously verify the correctness of the values

There is a very interesting saying in "Su Yu's War Memoirs": "Winning the war is the best way to solve ideological problems.

"In the enterprise, that is, as Kurt (ibid.) said, the correctness of the value selection is proved through the improvement of the enterprise's operating performance, so as to attract more people to follow. Tian Tao in "Ideology·System·People: Huawei "The Underlying Logic of Organization and Culture" is expressed in the words of a Huawei executive: "The reason why everyone is willing to obey the boss is because we can always win the battle by following the boss." Therefore, Huawei's values ????are "triable and observable." sex, imitability, and more importantly, it must also have an overwhelming success rate in the process of implementation. ”

Schein (ibid.) has similar thoughts: “Solutions based on certain values ??may not necessarily work reliably. Only those beliefs and values ??that have been empirically tested and continue to be effective in solving group problems can be transformed into hypotheses." He further believed that there are also "certain areas of value" that "may not be tested and verified at all," but "if members If each other's beliefs and values ??are reinforced over time, they will be taken for granted. "It can be said that the "mutual reinforcement" between these members may be a kind of "validation" for other members. In this case, "those members who fail to accept such beliefs and values ??are at risk of being expelled The test of whether these beliefs and values ??are valid is to see whether group members feel comfortable and carefree when abiding by them."

4. Values ??should be "meaningful to employees"

Deere and Kennedy (same as "Corporate Culture") said that the reason why employees can be "motivated and inspired" in terms of values ????is "because company life is meaningful to them." Speaking of which, this is actually a. It’s not a low standard, but in those companies that are truly excellent and continue to grow, this “meaning” does exist and continues. From another perspective, we can even say that perhaps it is these continued “meanings” that make this company. The culture of the company can be sustained and the foundation of the company can be "evergreen".

Regarding this point, Sharp (ibid.) said very straightforwardly: "The trust between managers and employees is the biggest thing in my heart." "I still remember when I was a young builder, working side by side with the workers, digging trenches and filling cement in the rain. When I have to leave, they continue to work as if I am still there and they know that I trust them and their abilities." Therefore, Four Seasons promotes a value based on mutual trust: respect, fairness, honesty, Trust. Sharp believes that "these values ??must be constantly promoted, otherwise our employees will not care about the company, and they will become selfish and self-serving."

4. Performance in the behavior of the company and employees. Come out

The dissemination and education of values ??within the enterprise are important means to achieve "value consistency". However, one issue that obviously needs attention is that the ultimate realization of the "value" guided by the values ??still depends on it. "Action" to achieve the necessary "results." The "action" I am talking about here includes both the corporate organizational level and the individual employee level, and the former is the premise of the latter. In other words, the "action" in values. In terms of ", organizational-level actions are first needed, and these actions are used to attract, drive, motivate or constrain the actions of individual employees; and the final actions of the employee group directly determine whether the values ??can truly achieve "unanimity". In this aspect, I don't agree with the widely circulated rhetoric on the Internet that "what you do is what the company is". This kind of hypocritical "stupid" game has no practical meaning except for giving off a bit of chicken soup.

Another related question is how the dissemination of values ??and the "action" of values ??reflect "value consistency". If "ideological identification" and "practical action" are used as the vertical and horizontal axes, four results can be obtained: First, we can. Excluding "neither agreeing nor taking action" will definitely lead to "unanimity of values"; secondly, "both agreeing and taking action" should be able to reach an agreement, or it may not be discussed.

There are two aspects that need to be discussed. One is "identification but no action", superficial agreement but no action, "duplicity", just like what Wang Yangming said, "knowing but not doing, just unknown", I am afraid it will be difficult to achieve "value consensus" ; The other is "disagree but take action". This situation may seem impossible at first, but if you think carefully about the situation in corporate practice, it is actually not difficult to understand. During the consultation process, I heard more than one business executive say, "I don't agree with these things, but I have no problem executing them." That is, "doing it" but not necessarily "knowing it." Although this is not a good phenomenon for enterprises, many people, especially the large number of middle and lower-level employees, are probably out of consideration for "career" and supporting their families. From the above preliminary derivation and judgment, we can draw a conclusion: with action, we may not agree; without action, we must not agree. Through this, I would like to emphasize the importance of action in “value alignment”. The results of the relevant literature search also place great emphasis on the logic of "action":

1. Value is expressed through behavior

Richard Pascal, Anthony Asso Si believes in "The Art of Japanese Business Management" that the words used in the overall evaluation of a company usually contain values ??and use metaphors with strong emotions. Sometimes the words used by people focus on describing facts and It’s not a judgment based on values.” Richard Barrett (ibid.) also says that values ??are expressed through behavior. When we say "do what you preach," we mean that a person's values ??are consistent with his actions. Values ??are what he "says" and behavior is what he "does". "The values ??of an enterprise publicly declare how the enterprise expects every employee to behave, even leaders and managers should not be exempted."

Yang Guoan said in "Yang Triangle of Organizational Capability: The Secret of Sustainable Enterprise Growth" that when he first came to the mainland in 1995, he saw "Customer is God" written on the door of many department stores. But "the salespeople gathered together in twos and threes to chat, completely ignoring the existence of customers, which made me feel no sense of 'God'." The reason was that "the core values ??promoted by the company and what employees really care about are two different things." In some outstanding companies he has surveyed in recent years, he has seen that “these personality traits reflect the appropriate traits, behaviors and general ways of doing things recognized by the company’s employees. In these companies, what employees think, say, and do The characteristics displayed are consistent with the company’s core values ??posted on the wall.”

Jack Welch simply said: I would even rather give up the word "values" and use "action" instead. "To make values ??truly valued by everyone, the company should reward those employees who have outstanding conduct and practice the values, and 'punish' those who contradict them."

2. Values ??must be integrated into the organization and in management

Cotter (ibid.) believes that there is an interdependence between a company's values ????and its business behavior. Therefore, "it can be achieved through necessary changes in business strategies, organizational structures, and personnel structures." To promote some changes in the company's business model." Tom Peters and Robert Waterman proposed in "The Pursuit of Excellence" that "the way to truly make a company thrive is through the combination of organizational structure, systems, styles, and values. The combination of these factors can make a company outstanding. ability to inspire ordinary employees to perform outstandingly.” Tian Tao's (ibid.) view is that most people at Huawei "do not care about the exquisiteness of culture, but care most about empirical authenticity" and that the organization "is more important than 'shout loud' Values ??must be built on the rock of the system.” They expressed the same idea, that is, values ??must be closely integrated with the company's organizational structure, system design and implementation, operating methods, management style and other organizational elements, so that it is possible to realize the "action" of values.

3. Values ??should become "guidelines for behavior"

Deere and Kennedy said in "Corporate Culture", "Some companies value current management most, and some companies emphasize communicating with the outside world. links, and companies committed to long-term development strategies, they also indicate which information is most important for decision-making."

"Values ??also play an important role in how far an individual is likely to go in an organization. If a company's most important purpose is product development, then the best people will want to work in an R&D lab; if a company's first value is customers service, then capable people will not want to work in the finance department, but in sales or service departments, and those who work in these jobs will advance faster in the company, thus reinforcing the importance of this value.”

Robert Goffey (ibid.) believes that culture “can develop unique behaviors at work or in the production of factory products” and “is related to the success or failure of the company and can also lead to personal integrity. The difference between commitment and efficiency is whether you enjoy your work or get tired of it."

Schein (ibid.) studied from the perspective of new employees. He said that for new employees, they must clearly understand what the organization really rewards - customer satisfaction, production efficiency, production Safety, cost minimization, investor return maximization, etc. Only by taking a closer look at what the organization actually rewards and the metrics they say about employee performance can new entrants truly understand the underlying assumptions under which the organization operates. At the same time, “If you want to achieve this effect faster, you must communicate with insiders to analyze the values, norms and norms that the group believes in. It is they that provide the daily operating principles for group members and guide their Behavior".

4. Values ??should be reflected in "achievement standards"

On top of "action guidelines", "standards" go one step further. Deere and Kennedy believe in "Corporate Culture" that for employees, values ??define the specific content of the concept of "success" (for example, "If you do this, you will also be successful") and establish the internal culture of the organization. Achievement Standards. He further believes that a strong culture company can eliminate this uncertainty to a large extent because it provides a framework, standards and value system for how people should behave. And "if employees know what their company upholds and what standards they should uphold, they are more likely to take actions to support these standards and are more likely to feel that they are an important part of the organization."

Schein (ibid.) says that if the founders or leaders of an organization seek to ensure that their employees understand their values ??and the assumptions they pursue, they must establish a set of policies that are consistent with the assumptions they pursue. system of rewards, promotions and positions.

Ben Horowitz (same book) put forward the view that "culture is action". He took the Japanese Bushido as an example and believed that "Bushido seems to be a set of principles, but it is actually a practice. Activities. Samurai defined culture as a standard of behavior and believed that culture should reflect virtues, not values. Values ??represent a belief, while virtues are something you aspire to have or already have.” He further believes that the reason why the "corporate values" that many companies strive to create are worthless is because they are about beliefs rather than actions. "As far as culture is concerned, what you believe in doesn't explain the problem; what you do is the key."

As a famous entrepreneur, Welch (ibid.) believes that "values ??are embodied in human actions" and therefore are "specific, essential, and clearly describable. They cannot leave too much to everyone." imagination space”.

5. Basic Conclusions

Through the above, the basic research conclusions we can draw are: (1) It is not easy for any organization to achieve "value consistency" things; (2) "Values ??Consistency" can be partially achieved through strict recruitment and screening; (3) Values ??education and dissemination within the enterprise is a good way to achieve "Values ??Consistency", but it may not guarantee its actual realization, because there are a large number of "Duplicity" of people and things; (4) Actions and their results are the most effective "way" to truly achieve "value consistency", although the people in action may not "really" or "immediately" agree with the values.