Are Your Values Sticky Enough to Reward?

Core values and value statements have a long history but a somewhat mixed track record in the organizational realm.  More than one management team has discovered - the hard way - that it is much easier to talk the value talk than walk the value walk.

This matters to us, because organizational values should provide us with important direction about where and how reward dollars should be spent.  Organizations become what they reward - and if the stated values lack the backing to influence reward decisions, their ability to shape culture and behavior will be compromised.

So why do our values tend not to stick?  In my Compensation Cafe article Are Your Values Sticky?, I highlight one of the key reasons that so many organizational value systems - the inspiring words inscribed on the web site and touted in press releases - end up as mere window dressing.  And sometimes worse. 

Creative Commons image "Sticky Situation" Brian Goddard Photography

Comments

[Julie]

Core values and value statements are the true reflection of an institution.I agree.

[Must see San Antonio Movers information]

The commitment to any values comes at a cost. It means difficult choices. For the aforementioned professional service firm partner, it meant the choice between paying people the way he wanted to pay them -- which was to begin drastically differentiating pay by individual revenue generation or treating them the way he publicly committed to in their value statement -- which amounted to the corporate version of "all of us or none of us."