5 Reasons You Need to Instill Values in Your Organization
April 4, 2014
www.fastcompany.com | Jessica Amortegui
Writing for Fast Company, Jessica Amortegui notes the importance of creating a “values-based” culture. However, she also acknowledges “how difficult it is to implement one.”
And yet Zappos “has seemed to crack the cultural code.” Indeed, their positive culture is so effective that people travel from all over the world to come see their practices in action. “Thousands of companies from around the world travel to the Las Vegas headquarters to see how Zapponians ‘live their 10 WOW values,'” writes Amortegui. “Zappos turned their culture into an attraction that warrants a price for admission. In doing so, they send a clear message to all those who seek the proverbial keys to the cultural kingdom: it is not easy to replicate the ‘secret sauce.'”
But how does one at least make an attempt at recreating the recipe? “For companies to truly close the chasm between their stated and lived values, they must enter the human psyche to extract excellence from the inside-out, not dictate it from outside-in. This requires organizations to pivot their approach: rather than get people to live the values, they should focus on the values that live in the people. This taps into the innate qualities that exist across mankind: human virtues.”
Finally, Amortegui offers five reasons “why a focus on virtues will accelerate your path forward”:
1. Virtues are a workplace game changer.
2. Virtues lead to the growth of the whole person.
3. Virtues lead to greater onboarding success.
4. Virtues improve engagement.
5. Virtues increase self-awareness.
Jessica Amortegui works in leadership development for VMWare. She is currently pursuing her master’s in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.