Value alignment makes organizations stronger
As an employee of an organization, do you know what the company values are? Today I want to talk a little about why that matters, both to the operation of an organization and the organization’s hiring strategy.
Evolution of responsible proxy
Last week, I wrote about thinking like an owner. I made the assertion that at every level, an employee is effectively a proxy, making decisions the owner would make in a given situation. Let’s take a step back and look at how ownership of tasks evolves and gets delegated.
Take, for example, a sole proprietorship. The whole company is one person. That person is not only the owner, but also the head of HR, the head of Finance, the head of Operations, the head of Technology, and all the other heads in between. To be in business for yourself is to wear all the hats.
And when you wear all the hats, you make only the most salient and important decisions and let the others go. There’s simply no time to do anything else.
Eventually, the things that must be done — the priorities — overwhelm the owner’s time, and the owner must delegate. Maybe that comes with a first hire that splits the company functions in two. Maybe the owner still represents HR, Finance, and Strategy, but the first hire represents Technology and Operations. This could happen in the case of a savvy business visionary hiring a developer to build and deliver the vision, automate processes, or integrate systems.
Responsible proxy is central reason that hiring is a critical business function that should never be taken lightly.
And as the organization grows, different people take on finer and finer scopes of responsibility, dividing things up into further specialized tasks. At each level, the owner hires someone more capable of a specific function, but that will make decisions the owner would favor. That’s not to say the owner is hiring a “yes” person, but one that shares or at least understands the owner’s vision for the company and will make decisions based on that vision.
In this way, then, the most menial or repetitive or replaceable jobs in the company are still done by people that proxy the owner’s decision. It’s the central reason that hiring is such a critical business function that should never be taken lightly. As an owner, you must adapt to ceding control to people that oversee your business as you would.
What does that mean for me?
For starters, what that means is that the entire company must, at some level, share the same values for the company that the owner or board of directors does. At least if you want to maximize business productivity.
Do you know what your company values are? Most large organizations have some sort of mission statement that should give you some sense of the values, unless your company’s mission statement happens to be so generic as to not express values. If they’re not spelled out in the mission statement, you’ll have to either ask the owners directly or infer it from behavior and company culture. In very large companies, the former can be extremely difficult due to the depth of the org chart.
If you’re a hiring manager: You’ve got to nail this one. All it takes is one individual with misaligned values to create a train wreck out of operations, especially in positions of greater authority. What you’re looking for is diversity of experience and skill sets, not diversity of goals.
If you’re an individual contributor: Are your values aligned with your company? Do you make decisions the way your owner would? When you feel alignment between your core values and the values of your business, you get a lot more accomplished, feel more productive, and become happier about your contributions.
This principle of value alignment leading to smoother operations doesn’t just happen in the workplace. Organizations that align to a core set of values and principles function better as a whole than those that are constantly under internal tension from competing goals. Families, volunteer groups, businesses, even friendships are stronger when values are aligned.
Consider it this way: If your goal is to move a giant boulder, optimum results occur when everyone pushes it in the same direction, instead of everyone pushing different directions. That boulder is your goal, and it takes a community to move it.
Here at That Conference, we’re aligned in our values. We want to bring you the best possible content, provide a platform, and build a stronger development community. If your values line up with ours, you’ll get great satisfaction by attending That Conference 2018, maybe even submitting a talk, or writing for us. If nothing else, join the conversation on Slack and enjoy the community we all share!
