Shared values are a complete fallacy and the pursuit of them will not help your organisation one bit.
The idea of writing values on a poster assumes that if everyone in the organisation shares the same values, the organisation will be a better place to work.
These shared values are articulated on posters as a way of bringing about the future that is desired by the powerful people in the organisation.
I guess it is assumed that people will be able to get on well if they share the same values and it will create a more harmonious place to work. It is also expected that if everyone shares the same values then the organisation will perform better.
The aspirations of these values are idealisations of a future in which the tension of conflict is avoided, diversity is embraced and openness and trust are pervasive.
Here are three reasons why you should rip up your values posters and stop trying to achieve shared values in your organisation.
Reason 1
In complexity science, novelty and new patterns arise from the interaction of diverse agents. Using this as an analogy for organisations suggests that innovation and novelty arise from the interaction of diverse people. If everyone has the same values, then this will squash innovation and new ideas in your organisation.
Instead, go for people with different values and watch the new ideas arise. At the same time watch out for how people negotiate the conflict that comes with it (reason 2 below).
Reason 2
Human relating is inherently conflictual, and these shared values totally miss this important point about being human. It is how we negotiate this conflict that determines whether we are a tightly-knit, high performing organisation, whether we blow apart in a spectacular bankruptcy or whether we potter along in the same old, same old way.
Reason 3
The idealisations on the values posters ignore the messy uncertainty of taking the next step together. In any project or organisational situation, people are negotiating with each other what to do next. The future is always unknown and people are working out what to do next in ways that enable them to go on together. They cannot just do anything, because of the risk of destroying relationships and then not being able to carry on together. The idealisations on the posters distract attention from the messiness of not knowing what the outcome of what you do will be, in an unknown future.
Sources
Stacey and Griffin – Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations
Shaw – Changing Conversations in Organizations
I agree that its useful to rip up value-statements and go for diversity instead. But in order to navigate diversity and complexity you need shared practices or values on how to deal with conflict. Furthermore if you actually want diversity to drive creativity, you need new practices and ethics of dialogue that will actually allow people to learn from one another.
Comment by Hendrik — April 7, 2009 @ 9:28 pm
I agree with Hendrik insofar, as a discursive approach is necessary. Where I disagree, however, is that the only value that need be internalised by all within an organization is that of permitted dissent.
Other than that, values need to be arrived at, not prescribed. Therefore the readiness to share opinion, confront disagreement and jointly contribute (each in their respective, individual way) to resolving organizational (sometimes even ego-led) conflict is absolutely necessary; the “values” underlying the methodology, however, can change and adopt over time, as you progress from problem towards resolution. In fact, it is unlikely that the “toolkit” will remain static over time, as more information about opinions and interests becomes public.
Conversely, as organisations progress down the path of their lifecycle, values can and will change, if there is genuine interest in transparent, sound leadership and management.
Organisations are nowadays too often fraught by uncompromising chains of command and a pathological fragmentation of roles and responsibilities. Organisational structures are no longer a means to the end of succeeding as an organisation by fostering the power of many individuals in conferrence. Instead, they mostly serve to preserve values and goals, which reflect those of the executive cabal – which has the added benefit of preserving power relations in favour of those, who right the corporate playbook.
The end result is the breakdown of communication and the polarisation of different sub-units of the organsiation against each other. Politics turns to intrigue, as functional orientation degenerates into a power struggle.
It seems ‘unity in diversity’ is nowadays a value, few are ready to share.
Comment by Michael P Tomaszewski — April 8, 2009 @ 1:26 am
“who _write_ the corporate playbook”, of course.
Comment by Michael P Tomaszewski — April 8, 2009 @ 1:28 am
I see. Don’t espouse shared values, because of the implied shifting value frameworks from emergent organizational theory. Got it.
So I’m guessing your values poster says something like:
1) We believe that innovation and novelty arise from the interaction of diverse people
2) We welcome diverse value sets and encourage new ideas
3) Conflict is a natural aspect of human interactions, and we embrace the clash of ideas
4) This poster is a process, not an end state. The future is always unknown, we may find news ways that will enable us to go on together
Comment by John Bordeaux — April 8, 2009 @ 2:54 am
What do we mean by shared values? I don’t want to debate a definition here, but in my opinion they are related to the culture and identity of the company, and they are ultimately the reason for an employee to embrace the company vision. The fact that a company promotes “diversity of opinion” could be a shared value in itself, not? I see no contradiction. On the other hand, when “not invented here” and “that’s not the way things are done here” are part of the company culture…
Comment by Christian DE NEEF — April 8, 2009 @ 11:21 am
I agree with Christian.
My personal view is that shared values are essential for a high performance organization and a culture of accomplishments and results. Diverse values create misalignment and unnecessary friction within an organization. This isn’t to say there won’t be differences of opinion, there can and should be, however, values form one of the cornerstones of culture and must be shared by employees.
I have also preferred inclusive organizations rather than a diverse organization. Inclusive organizations value individuals on their own merits rather than how they are different rather than ethnicity, gender or any preconcieved sociatal notions. Inclusive is far more creative and productive than diverse, which is in fact a subset of Inclusive.
Comment by Ian Graham — April 8, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
John, you have been very witty in suporting Hendrik’s call for a replacement values wall chart embracing diversity.
Christian, it sounds like you are using shared values in a similar way to Senge. I understand this to mean that the individuals working for the organisation must subordinate their own values to those espoused by the company.
Michael, ideology preserves the current power relations by making them seem natural.
Talk of “embracing diversity” is no more than hollow words. Increasing the diversity of those interacting as part of the organisation will have the benefit of increasing the chances that something new will arise. This “new” emergent outcome may be creative and innovative, and it may also be destructive. The price and risks are also high. Along with increased diversity comes increased conflict. It is fine to say that conflict is inevitable, which I think it is. But there is no guarantee that those in the organisation, for example its leaders, will be able to tolerate the conflict that comes out.
By the way, the espoused values are likely to be in conflict with each other in particular situations. For example, the value of seeing all patients within a certain time frame may well conflict with the value of seeing the most seriously injured patient first.
Comment by Stephen — April 8, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
Ian, I am curious to know how you will distinguish inclusive from diverse organisations. You are saying that a diverse organisation is one where people are seen in categories.
You define an inclusive organisation as one where people are respected for who they are as an individual.
I do not define diversity that way. To me, diversity is a descriptor of the degree of difference exists amongst the participants. A less diverse organisation will have greater levels of similarity amongst the participants, and a more diverse organisation will have greater degrees of difference between the participants.
The way that respect is distributed is not, to me, a function of the organisation’s diversity. I think that what you are referring to is what is called in New Zealand “political correctness.”
Comment by Stephen — April 8, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
Perhaps this will help clarify. My humble take is that an organization can be both inclusive and diverse. Inclusion should in fact foster diversity because differences are welcome and encouraged. The natural outcome of a truly inclusive organization will be diversity.
The starting point for diversity is how we are different.
The starting point for inclusion is more holistic and welcoming.
Comment by Ian Graham — April 8, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
Shared Values – Hit or myth?…
A post in Stephen Billing’s blog, entitled Three Reasons Not To Aim For Shared Values, has sparked an interesting discussion on the credibility of establishing “Shared Values” within an organization, and on the worth of striving to do so. The……
Trackback by informal coalitions — April 16, 2009 @ 11:02 pm
Stephen,
I’m not quite sure what it is about shared values that you are against (in this post)… Is it
- having any sharing at all?
- the idea that “shared values” are often but not always imposed by top mgmt?
- the idea that “words on the wall” are not actually ’shared’ values?
- the belief that sharing values means subordinating one’s personal self? You’ve got a lot going on here… worth teasing out.
Shared values, as I see them, (just as a start) are
(1) an integral, critical,
(2) ground-up, cohering element in an organization.
(3) Every organization has shared values of some kind — otherwise there would be no grounds for collective action.
(4) Values that are actually shared are not always the same as those denoted by mgmt as “shared values”.
(5) Sharing some values with your co-members doesn’t need to preclude being authentic and retaining your own values.
How do these claims about values fit with what you want to challenge?
Comment by CV Harquail — April 26, 2009 @ 6:07 am
[...] originally tweeted this post of Stephen Billing’s Three reasons not to aim for shared values a little while back. Stephen tells me that it resulted in a large number of people visiting his [...]
Pingback by Three reasons not to aim for shared values : knowledge management — May 18, 2009 @ 8:13 pm
Weick in Sensemaking in Organizations makes the point that shared values, understanding, etc are unnecessary.
Teams can work for shared experience, which creates their commnality, identity.
Shared values are not necessary for a culture to develop
Comment by Thabo — May 18, 2009 @ 11:06 pm
In the book Wisdom of the Crowds, James Surowiecki talked about how high performing groups all came to the table with a smattering of different backgrounds and perspectives. Only when a relatively strong leader was able to balance and integrate the input of a diverse group was some kind of functional or accurate ‘concensus’ made. He found that most homogenous groups (i.e. those with shared values and backgrounds) most likely fall into group-think and do errant things.
Following Stephen’s lead, the ‘diversity’ of which one should aim is not racial or gender-based, but a different way of perceiving and valuing the world . . . A young and an old physicist does not diversity make.
Perhaps a rubric would be diverse values going in, integration, shared values going out. This would allow for both the diversity of values to be addressed and integrated.
Comment by Byron Woodson — May 19, 2009 @ 12:47 am
Dear Stephen,
David Gurteen attracted my attention to your blog, thank to you and David.
1. If innovation is so important in the organisations you refer to, wouldn’t innovativeness (or something like openness to new ideas) be one of the shared values that you would really like to value in such organisations?
2. My experience with ’shared’ values is that provide useful occasions for reflexion and discussion about the values. Nice examples I experienced are workshop sessions of about an hour during which people exchange on concrete situations in which applying a specific value is really challenging, or not wise.
An alternative is to reflect on concrete organisational experiences which show the meaning of a concrete shared value.
- concluding: I do believe it is useful in any organisation to reflect and exchange once and a while on its core values, even if it is to reveal that some values should not be equally important to everyone within the business.
Comment by Kees van der Zanden — May 19, 2009 @ 1:14 am
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. There are many potential sources of conflict in an organisation – values, different information, different experiences, different agendas etc. Values are such a deep-seated thing that conflict arising from value differences can represent quite a significant hurdle.
I agree that overcoming this hurdle can stimulate creativity if done well. However, I don’t think its desirable in all aspects of operation. Innovation is great in areas like R&D or foreseeing Risk (as in Wisdom of Crowds). It and be fruitless and costly when efficient or speedy execution is what matters most.
Comment by Sam Marshall — May 19, 2009 @ 1:55 am
‘New Scientist’ 06 May 2009 had an article — Embrace your inner grouch — explaining research on creativity within organisations: “people who were dissatisfied and willing to pipe up were found to be the most creative (Academy of Management Journal, vol 44, p 682) … more at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227072.500-embrace-your-inner-grouch.html
Comment by Anne Hugo — May 19, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
[...] originally tweeted this post of Stephen Billing’s Three reasons not to aim for shared values a little whil… carry on reading. Share and [...]
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