Open any company website and read what they value— it could be in their ‘About Us’ page or on their ‘Job Descriptions’ pages. Likely, you will find single words or catchy phrases that describe their culture, who they are, and how they operate. Now, I would love you to imagine what behaviors (people, pictures, sounds, activities) come to mind when you think of the following words:
Empathy.
Authenticity.
Ownership.
Candor.
Take note of your answers then consider the following: how do you know the behaviors you painted in your mind’s eye is the same as what others in your company interpret to be? For example, is ‘listening more and asking more questions’ a sign of empathy? Or, do you expect empathetic people to use statements to the effect of, “I’m sorry for what happened…” Or is it a combination of both?
Let’s suppose an engineer identifies a critical software error at 11 PM and fixes it even though it isn’t his or her responsibility— is she or he demonstrating ownership?
What if a co-founder isn’t optimistic about the next fundraise, and independently starts a parallel fundraising process on his/her initiative? — is she or he demonstrating ownership, or crossing boundaries of accountability?
How about junior staff prioritizing the solving of severe problems beyond their expertise, at the price of fulfilling their specifically designed responsibilities?
Does authenticity mean speaking your mind without a filter? Or is that more like candor? Maybe someone authentic is open to sharing their strengths, weaknesses, and where they need help— or is that more about truthfulness and honesty?
There are no ‘absolute’ answers to the above questions.
But here is what we have noticed: if it is not clear what behaviors your company values and expects, then people are left to their interpretations and personal biases of what behaviors are expected of them. Their behaviors could be aligned or misaligned with what you expect. However, they are only doing the best they can with what they know, drawing on their historical experience of what those words mean.
Therefore, when articulating your company culture, it is useful to start with the behaviors that you expect. For example:
A friend and former hardware operator (now turned investor) shared with us his day-to-day activities in his business, “I used to take out the trash and sign million dollar bills.”
Legendary Frank Lloyd Wright valued ‘Learn by Doing.’ (the value) He would tell his students (and I’m paraphrasing), “Don’t design spaces you haven’t worked in and don’t design using materials you haven’t worked with.” At his famous site in Scottsdale, Arizona, Taliesin West, he assigned a student as an apprentice in a kitchen with the chef for months before allowing the student to design a kitchen— this is the behavior. Furthermore, most (if not all) of the buildings on site were built by the hands of his students— they raised the beams, mixed the cement, moved the boulders, and poured the foundations themselves—this is the behavior. To this day, students who study their Masters of Architecture at Taliesin West must design and build their student accommodation.
Some tips for behavioral specificity:
Be context-specific. Every behavior is useful in some contexts. However, they can be limiting in others. It might be appropriate to share your feelings and challenges with a colleague over lunch. However, it might not be so appropriate to do that with your customers over the phone. To set the context, consider using the standard ‘verb, subject, object, place’ structure for descriptions— who are the parties involved? What activities are happening? Who is performing what action? When and where is this taking place?
Describe the behaviors in a way that if you could use it to film a short movie scene. The description should be sensory-rich— confirmation by the five senses— so that someone could picture what you mean. By using sensory-rich descriptions in your communications, people are less likely to rely on their own stories and interpretations to make sense of what you mean.
Example:
"When a customer complains over the phone and is angry at this CSM, this CSM takes a deep breath, sits upright in his/her office chair, and spends most of the time (60-70%) listening to the customer first. The CSM then confirms their understanding with the customer by backtracking the customer’s response, and responding with questions before verbalizing their opinion/recommendation over the phone."
Note: this does not mean you shouldn’t do your best to find unique statements to describe your culture and values! However, by focusing on behavioral specificity, you can commence organizing those behaviors into distinct sets of values and statements to represent your culture. When you take this approach, the word or statement you prescribe to the value has the following richer meaning behind it:
A Value is a Symbol for Patterned Behavior.
Here is a template you can use to translate your company values with behavioral specificity:
Value: (Word or Phrase)
What it Means: (A General Description)
In Action: (Actions speak louder than words)
Context 1: (without context, people can’t imagine the action
What are 3-5 Aligned Behaviors:
What are the 3-5 Misaligned Behaviors: (contrast is an excellent way for learning)
Context 2: (without context, people can’t imagine the action)
What are 3-5 Aligned Behaviors:
What are the 3-5 Misaligned Behaviors:
Context 3: (without context, people can’t imagine the action
What are 3-5 Aligned Behaviors:
What are the 3-5 Misaligned Behaviors:
What it Is Not: (Clarify misconceptions)
Here is a hypothetical example we enjoyed crafting:
Value: Read Minds and Act!
What it Means: This means understanding people’s motivations, desires, fears, and concerns before they even consciously recognize it themselves, or express them— then taking a proactive set of actions to enrich their lives.
In Action:
Context 1: Customer Success
Present a solution to your customer’s needs by emailing and texting them a day before they even realize they needed it.
Context 2: Sales
Preemptively address a warm prospect’s key objection to purchasing your product within the first 30 seconds of speaking to a warm sales prospect over the phone.
Context 3: Hiring
Have a compelling, time-sensitive, job offer package (written) handy in your in-person interview with the perfect candidate you already know will be perfect for your company.
What it Is Not: This does not mean purchasing a hypnosis device, shaking a crystal ball, hacking into people’s data sources, hiring a private investigator, or outsourcing activities to 99psychics.com.