Making Company Values Part Of Daily Work

I was asked in an interview recently how do you build culture in an organization. My thoughts. 1. Align Culture with Organizational Strategy • Define the Desired Culture: Start by identifying the behaviors, mindsets, and attitudes that will support your organization’s strategic objectives. • Communicate the “Why”: Ensure employees understand how cultural values connect to the company’s purpose and success. Clear messaging from leadership about how behaviors tie to business outcomes is crucial. 2. Embed Values into Everyday Practices • Recruitment and Onboarding: Hire people whose values align with the organization’s. Reinforce cultural expectations from day one. • Performance Management: Build values into goal-setting, feedback, and evaluation processes. Recognize and reward employees who exemplify the desired culture. • Leadership Modeling: Leaders must embody the culture in their actions, decisions, and communication. Culture flows from the top down. 3. Build Systems that Reinforce Culture • Recognition Programs: Celebrate employees who demonstrate behaviors aligned with company values — not just top performers but also those who uphold integrity, innovation, or teamwork. • Training and Development: Provide learning opportunities that reinforce cultural values. For example, if adaptability is key, offer change management workshops. • Policies and Processes: Ensure HR practices (e.g., promotion, performance reviews, and rewards) reinforce the desired culture. 4. Empower Employees to Drive Culture • Culture Champions: Identify and empower employees across levels to model and promote cultural behaviors. • Employee-Led Initiatives: Create space for employees to suggest ideas that align with the organization’s values 5. Reinforce Culture Through Communication • Storytelling: Share real examples of employees living the culture in newsletters, meetings, or company-wide platforms. • Rituals and Routines: Develop meaningful traditions that reinforce values. 6. Measure and Evolve the Culture • Employee Feedback: Regularly gather input through engagement surveys, focus groups, or one-on-ones to assess cultural alignment. • Track Cultural Metrics: Use data like retention rates, (eNPS), and performance outcomes to measure cultural success. • Adapt as Needed: Culture isn’t static. Reassess as business strategies evolve to ensure alignment. Key Takeaway: An amazing culture is built when values are embedded into how the organization operates — from hiring to leadership behavior, performance management, and recognition. When culture directly supports strategy, it becomes a driving force for employee engagement, retention, and business success.

💡 Every executive meeting comes down to trade-offs. Yesterday we found our tiebreaker💡 I sat with our Product team and two other members of our Executive team, going deep on one of our roadmap items and trying to determine where it fit in our Q4 priorities. If you’ve ever been in one of these meetings, you know how it goes: • Many points of view • Plenty of sharp ideas • A healthy dose of agreement and disagreement And rightly so, these conversations matter. They’re about trade-offs and risks. We had to weigh what would best help us grow as a company, what our teams needed to deliver and sell successfully, and what would best enable future product capabilities. So what won in the end? 👉 The promise we’ve made to our customers, rooted in quality and meaningful insights and outcomes. (That’s actually why DISQO is spelled with a “Q.” It stands for Quality.) That customer promise became the tiebreaker that aligned us across different perspectives. It was a small moment, but it made me proud. And it made me reflect: ❓ Of the thousands of decisions made every day across our company, how many are rooted in our value to "Champion the Customer"? That’s the real measure of whether our values are alive in practice, not just on the wall or in a slide deck. Here’s the action plan I’m challenging myself (and others) to follow every day: 1️⃣ Ask the customer question. When making a decision, pause: How does this help deliver better outcomes for our customers? 2️⃣ Use values as the tiebreaker. When trade-offs are hard, let company values decide, not convenience, politics, or ego. 3️⃣ Call it out. Celebrate when decisions reflect values, and respectfully challenge when they don’t. 4️⃣ Repeat daily. The small decisions add up. Every “yes” or “no” shapes whether customers feel our values or not. ✨ Values aren’t tested in easy decisions. They’re tested in the tough trade-offs. Yesterday reminded me: when in doubt, Champion the Customer. That’s how we keep our promises, and that’s how we continue to #CreateTheFuture. #Leadership #CustomerSuccess #ProductManagement #CustomerExperience #Culture #CreateTheFuture

Stop treating your Employee Value Prop like a tagline. Start using it to galvanize your entire workforce. Most companies say they have an EVP. Few know what to do with it. It’s not about career site copy or rebranded onboarding kits. A real Employee Value Proposition unlocks momentum, the kind that aligns 5,000 (or 80,000+) people around a shared purpose. I learned this firsthand leading culture transformation at one of the largest healthcare employers in the U.S. Here’s the truth: If your EVP lives in HR, you’ve already lost. It’s not a talent tool. It’s a business accelerator. The organization had scaled through acquisition. That meant fragmented cultures, legacy systems, and a “one company” message that didn’t match reality. Corporate strategy called for innovation and next-level care. But the culture wasn’t built for it - yet. So we started with the people. Thousands of conversations, not just surveys. We asked: What connects you to your work? What keeps you proud? We found a unifying force: the collective drive to deliver incredible care. That became our EVP. But the transformation came when we operationalized it. We built outcome-based pillars, not just values, but decision lenses. Not words on posters. Tools for action. They became: Hiring guides (we trained recruiters to assess for alignment, not just skills) Onboarding narratives Manager scorecards Performance criteria Bonus frameworks (yes, compensation tied to culture outcomes) Every function, not just HR used the EVP to guide decisions. It became the organization’s GPS. And we didn’t do it alone. We partnered with outsiders - not consultants, but provocateurs. People who pushed us beyond industry norms. Who asked the uncomfortable questions. Who helped us stop designing for now and start designing for what’s next. One of those partners now runs a venture called Fauna, a testament to what bold collaboration can spark. Here’s what I’ve learned: If your EVP isn’t designed to: 🔹 Align culture and strategy 🔹 Focus every team around shared outcomes 🔹 Make performance part of your values …then you’re missing the point. This isn’t about launching an internal brand. It’s about building a culture system that accelerates your business and turns people into believers. So ask yourself: → Does your EVP live in a slide deck… or in daily decisions? → Are your values just wall art… or linked to pay and performance? → Did HR build your EVP… or did the whole business? An EVP buried in HR is a missed opportunity. An EVP wired into your operating model? That’s how real transformation sticks.

This is something more organizations need to understand: Culture isn’t just values statements or slide decks. Culture lives in what people do every day: · How they make decisions · How they treat each other · How they show up in the moments that aren’t scripted. If you want culture to be real, you have to make it visible. That starts by translating values into clear, observable behaviors. For example: If “collaboration” is a value, what does that actually mean in a meeting? Does it look like listening before speaking? Sharing credit? Asking for input before making a decision? The more specific you get, the easier it becomes for people to live it, and for leaders to reinforce it. Once those behaviors are defined, they need to show up in performance reviews, recognition, feedback, and hiring decisions. That’s how culture shifts from being a message, to being a habit. When people can see culture in action, they start to trust that it’s not just words. It’s the way things actually work around here.

Last week, I walked into a client's office. Their values were beautifully displayed on the wall: "Integrity. Innovation. Customer First." But then I saw something interesting... A manager was shutting down an employee's new idea because "that's not how we do things here." This is what happens when values are just expensive wall art. The hidden costs? → Innovation dies silently → Good people leave quietly → Culture erodes daily But here's what changed everything: We took those values off the wall and put them into action: 1. Made them measurable Instead of vague "Innovation," we tracked weekly improvement ideas from every team member 2. Built them into decisions "Does this align with our values?" became the first question in every meeting 3. Rewarded the right behaviors Started celebrating people who lived the values, not just hit their numbers 90 days later? • Employee suggestions up 300% • Customer satisfaction jumped 40% • Turnover dropped to near 0 The lesson? Values aren't decoration. They're your operating system. And they only work when you do. What would happen if you took your values off the wall and put them into action today? ➕ Follow me, Mark O'Donnell, for more insights on building value-driven organizations that scale.

5 hidden reasons your company values aren’t working —and the fix that makes them actionable, daily, and real.   1. They're All Talk, No Behavior Only 24% of companies define what their values look like. That means 3 out of 4 are saying “Live the values!” …without telling anyone what that actually means.   2. Top Performers Get a Pass Just 33% of employees say leaders enforce values. When star players break the rules with no consequence, values stop being culture—and start being optional.   3. They’re Too Vague to Coach “Integrity” means different things to different people. Without behavioral clarity, you're managing a Rorschach test.   4. They're Missing Word Pictures Word Pictures turn values into observable standards: • What “Needs Work” looks like • What “Good Work” looks like • What “Great Work” looks like Coaching gets easier. Accountability gets real.   5. They’re Not Tied to Daily Work Discussing values daily = 37% higher engagement. Value-based hiring = 135% higher performance. But if your values live on posters—not in reviews or feedback— they’re not culture. They’re decoration.   Values aren’t broken. Vagueness is.   ✅ Try this today: Pick one value. Ask: “What does this look like at ‘Needs Work,’ ‘Good Work,’ and ‘Great Work’?”   Which of these value gaps have you seen in action?   Know a leader who needs this? Send it their way.   ➕ Follow me (Mark Murphy) for daily posts like this. And join 100,000 elite leaders who get my newsletter for research, scripts, quizzes, and more!