AW: What’s your organisation’s personality? What are your company’s core values?
A good business is built by governing values and principles. As the saying goes “if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything”; if you do not have set values, your business will have the “anything goes” personality, which means whoever can do whatever, whenever and however. Like a person, your business has a personality, which immediately shows when customers deal with you and your staff. Even though setting values and core principles is not on your to do list when you are setting up your business it should. Have you ever entered one of those stores that have a feel to them, which even extends to the employees and how they behave and treat you; that is a value based organisation.
Values are important in that:
· They set the tone of your organisation
· They provide you with the expected code of conduct
· They set the boundaries, so that you do not cross the line.
· They also assist you in the decision making process. When faced with a decision and you have no idea what to do, you simply refer to your values, that tell you who you are and what you stand for.
So how do you go about setting values:
· First things’ first, you need to define the vision.
· Once you know your vision, you can simply write down what your organisation is all about, not your particular roles, products or services, but beyond that. Write down a couple of words that you would want people to use when describing or talking about your organisation. For example in Mulika, when people deal with me i just want them to say perfect, excellent, wow, bravo! Therefore one of my core values is “A Standard of excellence”; this means every time i perform a task, i deal with a client, i decorate my offices, i ask myself “ Am i living up to the standard of excellence?”.
Develop your own values in 3 simple steps:
· What is the vision of your organisation
· Write words that you would want people to use when asked about your business
· Write down the expectations that you would have in each aspect of your organisation, e.g.
o Operations – How you expect things to be run.
o Human Resources – How you expect employees to perform
· Write down your values.
There you have it, giving your organisation personality is as easy as 1,2 3 simple steps.
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