Values guide people’s decisions and behaviors. Values and related beliefs are behind all the important or unimportant decisions we make during the day. The decision to take a break from a long meeting at noon and go to lunch, or to order a sandwich and work and eat at the same time, or whether or not to report someone who is corrupt at work to the management are also based on values.
In trivial decisions it is often not possible to recognize values and the underlying belief system. Values are recognized in important decisions and especially under pressure. But even then, people who have not been exposed to a systematic approach to values tend to adopt an interpretation that comforts them.
Values in Business Life
There are two institutions that have existed since the world began. One of them is the army and the other is religion. The reason why both of these institutions continue to exist, albeit in different forms, and grow stronger every day, is their “rituals”. Ritus means “right action” in Latin. Rituals are actions that communities and individuals perform without discussion, almost automatically, because of their belief systems. Examples of rituals include a soldier saluting his superior on sight (without questioning whether he is worthy), and a believer praying five times a day (without questioning whether his daily preoccupations allow him to do so).
For example, almost all readers of these lines, by extension of their health belief system, do not go to bed without brushing their teeth, no matter how tired they are.
Today, business has become the third institution shaping the world. However, contemporary business life does not have thousands of years of tradition and rituals like religion and the military. While every organization that leads the society should have a responsibility, it is difficult to say that today’s business life has such a tradition and role.
Business has not yet understood the role it has to play. Capitalism’s basic assumption that the market will regulate itself without intervention is far from producing the expected results for society as a whole.
Unfortunately, the dream that socialism would serve society with an understanding of virtue for the common good of people could not be realized. The individual virtues of those who struggled to make socialism dominant were not enough to make virtue collective. The resulting economic inefficiency collapsed socialism and led to the perception of capitalism as the only correct method. Such a lack of alternatives has led to an understanding that “in a market economy, everything is permissible to make a profit.
If religion and the military have survived for thousands of years and are stronger than ever, it is because they have embedded a values-based understanding at every stage of education. The biggest problem faced by the secularists in Turkey today is the lack of an education system based on values that are actually grounded in reality. In the founding years of the Republic, such an understanding was established, but as time passed, either the values became hollowed out or the values that the Republic considered to be virtues were completely forgotten.
Business requires doing the right things in the right way. This requires sustainability, good service and, in Richard Barrett’s terms, the liberation of the soul of the organization. For this to happen, managers at all levels and all employees need to make decisions based on values they believe in wholeheartedly. If every decision is not linked to the values held by individuals and the organization, the values cannot be lived and realized.
What do values aim at?
Values are rules for living and a compass for making decisions. Values are deeply held beliefs about the path to follow to achieve a particular outcome. Values are reflected in the world through behavior. The phrase “being true to one’s values” implies that there is no contradiction between one’s values and one’s behavior. An organization’s values are a clear declaration of how everyone in the organization is expected to behave, including leaders and managers.
Individuals raised with a secular education approach are mostly unaware of their values. Values are shaped by the answers to the questions “Who am I?” “What do I want to achieve in life?” “What is the path I will choose to achieve what I want to achieve?” and “What do I stand for in front of people and do I act accordingly?”.
Without asking these questions, it is difficult to gain awareness of values. People express their behavior through their values. Similarly, organizations also have written or unwritten values. Organizations reflect these values to life through the ways of doing business and relationships that are an extension of the corporate culture.
Values are abstract and open to interpretation according to individuals. For this reason, it is possible to cover up and “justify” decisions and practices that contradict values within an organization by creating confusion, by talking too much and saying nothing, by saying “but” after a sentence that supports the general truth, and by making a sub-sentence that defends the opposite message of the main sentence.
Research has shown that there is a strong relationship between the business results of an organization and the values prevailing within the organization. In addition, the same research has also shown that there is a relationship between the values of the employees and the values of the organization.
When individuals change their beliefs and values, their decisions and behaviors change. If the beliefs and values of a certain number of people change in the same direction, the decisions and behaviors of the community and society change.
Richard Barrett likens the practice of bringing about parallel change in individuals or a community in these four quadrants to engineering and calls it “whole system change”. Accordingly, “whole system change begins at the level of an individual’s personal consciousness and results in changes in the decisions and behaviors of a group”. Barrett argued that there is no change in organizations, people change but organizations do not change but transform. This definition means that if a map can be drawn in the areas named as areas of consciousness in Table I, it is possible to make an assessment of the level of consciousness of an individual or community. Thus, it is possible to raise the level of consciousness from one level to another by managing values within an organization.
This approach, which allows for the leveling and mapping of values, is a very unique and important approach. This is because it makes it possible to monitor and measure change over time.
The so-called “cultural change tools” are based on a seven-step system inspired by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
The levels in this system and their main definitions are as follows.
What are values for?
Shared values build trust and thus make it possible to build a community that shares common ground. Values create cohesion and unity and allow people to bond together in sincere friendship. This makes it possible to achieve common goals quickly and effectively. The strength of a community is measured by the commitment of its members to the common values they share. If there are no shared values, people do not care about each other and remain indifferent to each other’s problems and concerns. Communities that do not share any common values experience chaos and anarchy. For example, if everyone tries to get ahead in a matter that requires queuing, not only will there be longer waits, but everyone will be annoyed and complain. To create a strong corporate culture, values must be shared by everyone and lived accordingly. However, what is decisive in this regard is the attitude, behavior and decisions of managers in accordance with values.
In organizations with a strong corporate culture, values are the rules for being accepted as a member of the organization. In such an organization, those who act in accordance with the rules get good results and rise within the organization. Those who behave in accordance with values but do not get the expected results are given training to improve their skills. Those who get good results without acting in accordance with values are expected to benefit from behavior modification training. Those who fail to achieve both have to leave the organization as soon as possible.
The purpose of establishing a set of values is to define principles of behavior to create a coherent culture that will support and build the vision and mission. Values provide a framework within which each individual within the organization can do his or her job with a sense of responsible freedom. When employees internalize the values of the organization, everyone is accountable to each other.
Who should values target?
Values are mainly for workers. R. Barrett compares values to the collective flight of birds and the swimming of fish in schools. When birds fly in large groups, they act as a single organism. When a flock of birds ascends and descends, lands and takes off, they act as a single coherent organism, as if controlled from a single location. Computer simulations have shown that the collective flying behavior of birds is the same for every individual bird. In reality, the rules birds follow are simple. Each bird maintains a minimum distance from the bird next to it, flies at the same speed and avoids fixed objects.
In a way, we can liken these rules of behavior that birds follow in their flights to the “values” they adhere to in order to form a harmonious union. If every employee behaves in accordance with the rules of the organization, it creates a harmonious whole, as in the example of the bird community. In such a community, there is trust because everyone lives up to their oaths and promises.
Conclusion
Ethics, like law, is necessary for everyone. Companies are expected to develop a corporate climate that facilitates and rewards ethical behavior. This requires measuring corporate culture and structuring human resources and corporate communication strategies in the targeted direction.
R. Barrett, Building a Values-Driven Organization, Butterworth- Heinemann, 2006
R. Barrett, Liberating the Corporate Soul, Butterworth- Heinemann, 1998
R. Barrett, Liberating the Corporate Soul, Butterworth- Heinemann, 1998
Prof. Dr. Acar Baltaş
Source: https://kaynakbaltas.com/genel/degerlerin-degeri/
