Core Values can be meaningless. Are yours?

While doing some research with a past client I stumbled on an article on Core Values by Michel Hogan on the Brandology.com website. It really hit home with me because I’m such a big believer that a brand is truly a product or service personified.

The truth is, enduring brands are propped up and supported by fully engaged stakeholders. Enduring brands have a personality with values as real and strong as those of our workmate, team members or neighbor.  Aligned organizations who experience long-term success find that the person’s family (management & team members) must embrace and share the same values.

Additionally, true friends (customers/clients/tribe) of the person (brand) share the same values. We often try to make it more complicated than it needs to be, but common sense speaks loudly in this case.

Think of your brand as a person, teammates as family, and clients as best friends.

Here is an Excerpt from Michel Hogan’s post on Brandology.com about Core Values

At the core, your organization’s Brand is a reflection of the actions and beliefs of the people who work there. Those actions and beliefs are shaped and directed by the core values they hold. So before you start trying to give your brand more sizzle, ask a question sure to generate some long-term results – “Do our core values and our Brand align?”

Brand is not a subset of marketing, not merely a device for connecting with customers and shaping their perception, not a logo and tagline. While these are all useful and important aspects of a Brand they are just that – small pieces of the whole. To paraphrase author Margaret Wheatley, “Brand is both what we want to believe is true and what our actions show to be true about ourselves.”

Simply, employees cannot deliver on a brand promise that is not tied to their shared day-to-day beliefs and actions and in failing to do will negatively impact the expectations of customers drawn to that same promise. When the Brand is connected to the core values of the organization, consistent delivery of the brand meshes seamlessly with the existing behavior and belief: no high profile internal “brand education” campaign needed; no change initiatives needed; what customers expect is what they get, strengthening perception; employees don’t feel they are being asked to deliver something they don’t believe, further reinforcing the values and creating a upward spiral of motivation and belief.

Tidbits on Core Values:

Jim Collins says: “You cannot “set” organizational values, you can only discover them. Nor can you “install” new core values into people. Core values are not something people “buy in” to. People must be predisposed to holding them. Executives often ask me, “How do we get people to share our core values?” You don’t. Instead, the task is to find people who are already predisposed to sharing your core values. You must attract and then retain these people and let those who aren’t predisposed to sharing your core values go elsewhere.”

Patrick Lencioni warns: “Take a look at this list of corporate values: Communication. Respect. Integrity. Excellence. They sound pretty good, don’t they? Maybe they even resemble your own company’s values. If so, you should be nervous. These are the corporate values of Enron, as claimed in its 2000 annual report. And they’re absolutely meaningless…”

What are your thoughts and comments about Michael Hogan’s suggestion that the core values of stakeholders reinforce the brand? I’d love to hear from you below.