Marriages That Work

Everyone’s longing or an oxymoron?

People often think of organizational values as this “soft thing”, a meaningless statement up on the walls somewhere that at best is there to serve as a stimulant or an inspiration on a gloomy office day.

And yes, that is often the truth, sadly.

But there are organizations out there who are truly driven by a set of deliberately chosen values. Companies where those values are REAL (as opposed to fictional and on top of aspiring), ALIVE (as opposed to theoretical), and KICKING.

Then, and only then, when an organization puts enough time, attention and relentless effort to make and keep their values REAL, ALIVE and KICKING, is it capable of leveraging them for organizational growth or change, or to deal with ongoing and inevitable turbulence of these days.

Similar to marriage, companies will go through life cycles, ups and downs, moments of glory, and crisis, and only those aligned around a set of values will survive.

*This is an excerpt from ABT’s workshop on organizational values delivered on January 17, 2020 for senior management of the Krakow AmCham Members including Motorola Solutions, GE Medical, Pegasystems, BP, Takenaka and others.