A winning formula for company culture

The value promises process consists of creating clearly defined expectations. Your team is saying, “These are my expectations on how I will behave and how my colleagues will behave when it comes to how we accomplish our work together.”

The promise is the expectation. The group conversation or survey with feedback around each one of these promises is where the agreement comes from. When someone reads the promise out loud, we take the time to run it through our personal filters, and we say, “Yep, I agree. Let’s move forward with that.” Or “No. I have changes that are needed for me to agree.”

Remember that you’re likely never going to reach 100 percent agreement across the board. It’s about getting the vast majority to agree—instead of just the people who are willing to speak up. That’s why a survey can be a great tool for ensuring that everyone weighs in. You can always do a combination of the two depending on your current norms and what makes sense for your team. Whatever direction you choose, it is important to create the space and time for discussion and feedback so that things can continue to be molded.

More often than not, these types of behavioral agreements aren’t created by an entire organization. They are created by a few people who sit around a table and make decisions for everyone because it’s faster and easier to do it that way. Yet this latter process is also how to almost guarantee what people will be talking about around the watercooler and feeling pissed that they’re expected to do things they never agreed to.

The whole point of the value promises exercise is that the entire team gets to be a part of creating expectations and then agreeing on them—not feeling coerced or caught off guard but instead feeling considered, empowered, and appreciated. It’s extraordinary what happens when you create space for voices to be heard, when you truly listen. Plain and simple: People invest in what they create. That’s exactly what we’re doing here.

Expectations + Agreement = Satisfaction

Do you see how the value promises create a specific set of expectations for each value? There’s no guesswork on how they should be interpreted.

If you choose to do this as a guided conversation in a retreat or meeting setting, be sure to have a skilled facilitator leading the conversation. This can be a member of your team as long as they are a culture keeper and someone people respect within the organization at large. We want to avoid the feelings or experiences of favoritism or bias coming from the facilitator so that you can truly activate possibility for everyone.

When you cocreate your value promises in this way, you’ll get so much further ahead.

If you haven’t noticed, this work lights us up and activates an immense sense of purpose for us and for those we work with.

Whatever you choose, do it with intention, integrity, and commitment to the bigger picture: creating a values-driven workplace culture so that your business and its people can thrive.

This is an excerpt from MaryBeth’s book – Permission to Be Human: The Conscious Leaders Guide to Creating a Values-Driven Culture.

Check out this company culture book.

If you need support in facilitating that transformational experience, reach out to us here and we would be happy to support you.