How we came up with our core values in half a day?

Ben Guerville
Sep 6, 2018 · 7 min read

Even if we recently celebrated our 8th anniversary, even if we sold the company to a US public group in 2015, Quotient, even if we’re profitable ;) … We still consider Shopmium as a startup. Why? (a) our revenue and user base is still growing very fast, (b) we’re a tech company, we have developers and we’re building a product, © we’re innovators and we disrupt our market, (d) we keep this “work hard, play hard” startup mindset.

When I joined the company, back in 2014, before the acquisition, we were renting a 100m2 office to Blablacar, in the Criteo building in Paris. It was basic and the only decoration was made of some famous mottos, stuck on the walls: “Why join the Navy if you can be a pirate?” (Steve Jobs), “Always deliver more than expected” (Larry Page) or other punchlines like “This is a no bullshit zone”, “Done is better than perfect”, etc. Since then, we grew, sold the company, and we could reasonably move to a larger office, we were finally “at home”, in our own place, not subleasing to another larger startup anymore!

Why did we define our own values?

When a company is growing, and especially after an acquisition, it’s quite common to go through an identity crisis. One of the reasons for that is that some of the very first employees — and the founders at some point — are leaving: good timing to start a new venture, money from stock-options, bad fit with the acquirer, etc. Problem: those folks are the “guardians” of the company culture! Thus, the risk is to progressively lose this culture built over the years and which is a part of the success.

We realized that we were experiencing this situation, slightly, so we started to address this problem. How could we carry this legacy on? We naturally thought about turning this tacit culture into formal values. Actually, we already had values, core beliefs that we were all sharing, we just had to verbalize them properly!

We were at the right stage to do it (although I’d recommend to do it sooner when possible).

We’ve been focusing on revenue and product for the last 7 years, so the first step for us was to list all the good reasons of spending some time on an intangible matter:

  • Recruitment: values are a very good way to give a better vision of the company outside, and it’ll help for candidate screening (does this candidate fit with our values?).
  • Team building: the whole team has to work on it and it creates cohesion.
  • Persistence over time: no more oral tradition!
  • Management: referring to this or that value to support an argument during a discussion with a team or a member of that team.
  • Set targets, make everyday and strategic decisions.
  • Reinforce company uniqueness.
  • Harmonize company culture across our offices in Europe.

You’ll easily find a lot of articles on this…

How did we proceed?

We thought it was essential to use a bottom-up method, so we put forward this idea with Quentin, co-founder of Shopmium: we would organize a back-to-school 2 days offsite seminar with the team, a mix of work and fun. Half of the 1st day would be dedicated to work and the team would have to define our core values.

Once we were on the same page with other executive fellows, we started to work on the method. We could have simply asked people to directly put forward 5 values, but the path to create the values was as important as the final output itself. After some research, a method written by Bernhard Bockelbrink stood out from the crowd (cf. Organizational Values Workshop). Unfortunately it was not fitting perfectly with our constraints: too long and requiring facilitators to conduct the workshops. So we worked on a more streamlined version with 4 phases during the seminar and a last one at the office the following week.

The method

Group: 36 people (6 teams of 6) + 4 directors to help them during the workshop

  • Should work for up to 100 people
  • These teams are kept for other activities

Venue: a large meeting room + 6 smaller rooms

  • We hosted the seminar in a very peaceful location, a large farm in the Normandy countryside, very quiet. Most of the teams worked outside.

Supplies: large blank posters, post-it notes, markers, tape

Timing: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Rules

  • No computer (just one to create slides)
  • No smartphone
  • Take at least one break to keep a cool head
  • There aren’t any stupid idea
  • Give ideas, don’t knock other’s ideas (in the first place)
  • Appoint a facilitator in the team as a time-master

Briefing (10 minutes)

  • Gather everyone in a large meeting room to brief them on the conduct of workshop.
  • Create a funny atmosphere (start with energetic music, use cool gifs in your slides…) but remind them it’s work and they should be studious.
  • Explain reasons why, what are company values, why they’re useful.
  • Explain the rules and conduct of each phase.
  • Provide them with the detailed method (printed on a sheet of paper) and supplies.
  • Answer questions.

Phase 1 — the success stories (20 minutes)

  • Each team goes to their assigned meeting room.
  • Each member relates a success story (personal or professional).
  • While a member tells his success story, another member writes down on post-it notes the 5 or 6 main keys to this success.

Example:

  • Success story: I delivered this project within a week.
  • Thanks to (criteria):
  1. Maximum focus on this project,
  2. Structured approach, method,
  3. Power of conviction towards the client to make him accept concessions to go faster,
  4. Speed of implementation
  5. Operational excellence and reliability,
  6. Teamwork, trust between colleagues.

Output: 6 success stories x 5 keys to success = 30 post-it notes (maybe 15–20 after deduplication)

Phase 2 — the themes (20 minutes)

  • The team gathers all the keys to success and tries to create thematic groups.
  • The team can debate and refine those categories (themes) but doesn’t need to name them at this stage.

Output: a large poster with 4–5 themes

Phase 3 — the illustration (35 minutes)

  • Probably the most difficult phase!
  • The team has to find a title for each category.
  • And then writes 5 “I-statements” to illustrate each of them.

Output: 1 slide for each theme, with at least 3 “I-statements”.

Phase 4 — the values (35 minutes)

  • Last step!
  • Convert each theme and its illustrations in a short sentence (7–8 words): you get a value!
  • Also, explain this value in a short paragraph (30 words).

Example:

  • Value: listen sympathetically

=> Listen first, then talk, to create mutual confidence leading to creativity.

  • Explanation: Tom, who’s usually impatient, took on him to listen to Michel, and this allowed him to formulate a very good innovative idea.

Output: 1 slide for each value

Phase 5 — the pitch (30 minutes)

  • This phase is optional but I think it’s worth it.
  • Gather the whole team in the large meeting room.
  • All the teams will present their values to everyone in 5 minutes and should receive warm applause!

Don’t be afraid by all theses steps, after a good briefing, it will run smoothly! Moreover we discovered fine speakers on this occasion!

Wrap up

The following week, we just asked each team’s captain to get together and to decide on 5 final values. Then they had to present it to the top management for final approval and fine tuning.

Last but not least, the design

To become really concrete, we asked our lead designer Julie to create posters, that we could then hang on the walls.

The values

Work with passion

We are proud of what Shopmium offers to users and brands. We are all focused on the best experience for users. Who are we? SHOPMIUM! And what are we? The BEST TEAM EVER!

Always seek excellence

We are tenacious and not afraid of challenges. We seek to always exceed expectations in order to meet ambitious objectives. We believe that learning is a continuous process, regardless of experience.

Solve problems together

We work together as one team to solve problems. We are united and stick together in the face of adversity. We are always ready to help our colleagues.

Test, learn & innovate

We dare to experiment and test new ideas for continual improvement. We are ready to be out of our comfort zone and will never fear to try something new. We learn by testing small and then scale up.

Have empathy

We listen to our users and brands. We place ourselves in the shoes of others to better understand them. We respect the opinions of everyone and encourage them to provide feedback.

Was it a good idea?

It’s been a exactly a year since we did this exercise and there are obviously short term and longer term benefits.

Short term:

  • The workshop itself: everything went very well and employees really played the game. It was a very good team building activity.
  • Many projects involve several teams, but this is the only one involving all of the teams together.
  • It puts everyone on the same level, whatever the level of seniority, and it values people more broadly.

On the long term, it finally reached most of the good reasons listed before to run this project:

  • We use it during employees onboarding.
  • It helps to support strategic decisions.
  • Sometimes, we use it to explain to someone why he didn’t act as expected.
  • It inspires people, maybe not everyone, but that’s something at least.
  • It contributes to our uniqueness, to our corporate identity and makes us stronger.
  • Icing on the cake, our office has a much better look with all those cool posters :)

Does your company have core values? If not, maybe you should consider it!

Ben Guerville

Written by

VP Europe Operations at Shopmium, a Quotient Brand.

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