Jay Brown, CEO of Crown Castle
You'd be hard-pressed to find a company where the organizational values aren't etched grandly upon their walls or websites and inscribed on nearly every page of the new employee onboarding manual.
Yet, no matter how vivid and appealing that ornate mosaic of company values, how many employees use them to guide their daily actions? If your answer is "not many," you're right.
A Leadership IQ study called Why Company Values Are Falling Short discovered that employees are 115% more engaged when their organization has a well-defined set of company values. But only 24% of organizations have detailed what specific behaviors are necessary to live their company values. And a meager 33% of people believe that their direct manager holds people accountable to those values.
Corporate values needn't be mere corporate ornamentation, however. And if you look hard enough, it is possible to find leaders for whom values are more than empty words.
Jay Brown is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Crown Castle, the United States' largest provider of shared communications infrastructure. Notwithstanding the company's approximately 5,000 employees, more than 40,000 cell towers, and approximately 85,000 route miles of fiber, Brown has found ways to spread Crown Castle's values deep into the organization.
Last year, the company rolled out a new set of six value statements, which together build the acrostic PURPLE. The value statements are "People matter," "Us together is better," "Right thing, always," "Pursue excellence," "Learn and grow," and "Embrace stewardship."
Those value statements might not sound particularly unique, but their development and dissemination certainly are. In a recent conversation, Brown shared with me that, "We brought in a group of 16 leaders through all levels of the organization to look at the value statements and ask, 'Are these authentic to who we really are?' Are these values said in a way that will resonate with our teammates? And if not, how can we do that better? Living the value that 'Us together is better,' those 16 individuals were advisors for me as we rolled out the value statements."
Brown's 'us together' mindset didn't stop with having 16 advisors. "As we approached the challenge of rolling out the values to the team, we took an approach that's guided by the culture itself," he tells me. "We use the culture to spread the culture."
Here's what that means in practical terms: "'People matter' is one of our values," Brown says, "I asked our teammates to send emails to people in the company who they saw exhibit each one of our values.' In a matter of days, we had tens of thousands of emails bouncing around the company with people acknowledging, affirming and encouraging one another, and sharing how this particular person had lived the values."
It's a shame how few organizations invest the time to recognize and affirm people. For example, in Leadership IQ's study on performance appraisals, a paltry 28% of people believe that their leader always recognizes their accomplishments. Yet here's Crown Castle delivering one of the most effective and widespread positive reinforcement initiatives you'll see, all while disseminating and demonstrating its corporate values.
The benefits from this exercise went far beyond just sharing the values. Brown tells me, "It became as rewarding for the people who were affirming others as the people who were receiving the emails. We experienced this dynamic of people affirming and encouraging one another while simultaneously embracing learning and living our values."
Before you attempt this approach at your company, make sure that the organization is as serious about its values as Brown and Crown Castle. Are your values authentic? Are they believable? Are they used in everyday processes like hiring?
For instance, we know from the Hiring For Attitude research that only 20% of employees think that their company always hires people who fit well with their company values. Meanwhile, Brown says, "As we evaluate leaders for the next stage of their career, we're evaluating them based on whether they share our values and whether they'll make the culture stronger."
"I have a responsibility to live the values in my role," he says, "but the culture is owned by everyone. And unless the values are owned by everyone, they're just statements on a wall somewhere."
