New Values - Old Behaviours?
Another week of ‘disclosures’ and disillusion with our parliamentary M.P.s and calls for a ‘new politics’, assuming the death of democracy as we know it. The global financial collapse and backlash against fat-cat bankers has underlined the hypocracy of institutions, companies and frankly all of us. While there are always some brave lone voices and whistleblowers, most of us go along with what we want to hear, unconsciously ‘ticking the boxes’ when we generally benefit from the status quo. Only when our lifestyles are threatened and survival modes kick in that we start really questioning the behaviours and values of others it seems.
As a professional observer and practitioner in ‘visions and values’ I am certainly hoping that we can cut through the ‘protective’ niceties of corporate-speak aspiring to the usual roll call – ‘innovation, trust, openness, community, environment, etc’.
Back-to-basics is a cliché but a simple emphasis on honesty, trust and transparency would be a good start.
I came across another value recently – ‘Courage’. I really like this – an organisation that believes in its people having the courage of their convictions and actions – intellectual and practical courage.
Differentiation gets increasingly difficult distinguishing between typical generic corporate ‘must have’ organisation attributes. Perhaps now is a good time to strip out the flabbly clichés and reconstruct a company’s values from scratch based on real behaviour. ‘Courage’ then becomes a real ‘driver’ and a way of identifying who really cares and delivers. Looking forward to some brand awards for bravery soon.