Mention corporate values, and a lot of people bristle. That's the result of a combination of several causes. One is a lack of trust among employees, who often don't see any alignment between the values a company declares and what they actually experience day to day. Another cause can be management that doesn't emphasize values, or doesn't see a clear path to implementing them. The result is that corporate values end up as nothing more than phrases on a website.
At Kogi, we see values as core principles that help a company achieve its strategic goals and that get systematically built into how people work, both collectively and individually — in decision-making, information sharing, prioritization, and building products and services.
Underestimate the topic of values, and it can come back to bite you
Most value statements are, in reality, bland, generic, vague, or even dishonest. Values aren't as harmless as some managers think — they can actually be quite destructive. Empty talk about values breeds cynicism and frustration among employees, and it undermines managers' credibility at the same time. We have plenty of quotes from employees at various companies — here's one of them:
“Our company presents itself as traditional, focused on quality, values, and a family-like approach. And that doesn't work. In reality, we're behind our competitors, and it isn't helping us succeed.”
Managers, meanwhile, often treat corporate values as a one-off marketing exercise, judging them by initial interest rather than by content and long-term implementation. In practice, this turns the topic into more of a source of division than unity — and at best, it has no real impact at all.
But there is a methodical approach that actually works
Everything we do for clients at Kogi CON starts with corporate strategy — defining what the company wants to achieve. From there, we design together what kind of corporate culture will best help the company deliver on that strategy, because an e-commerce company needs a different corporate culture than a nuclear power plant. Only then do values or principles come into play, acting as a “bridge” between the target culture and the behavior you can actually observe in the company. The final phase is using the concept of team and individual habits as a tool for implementing those corporate values. At Amazon, for example, the hiring process includes a role called “Bar Raiser.” This person's only job is to assess how well a candidate matches the company's 14 leadership principles, which Amazon considers its core values.
We divide values into:
“Business-oriented” values = values that drive the execution of a company's strategy. They're directly tied to the decisions a company wants to make, what it wants to pay attention to, and what it bases its decisions on.
IKEA example: one of their values is “cost-consciousness.” This means they want to achieve more with fewer resources, without compromising on quality. Their goal is for as many people as possible to be able to afford their products.
Amazon example: the value of “customer obsession” shows up, for instance, in Amazon Prime, which offers fast delivery within one day (or even the same day). That's why the company built its own delivery network, to minimize its reliance on external carriers.
“Hygiene-oriented” values = values considered a given. They don't automatically ensure a company achieves its strategy and goals, nor do they necessarily set it apart from the competition. However, their absence can lead to a loss of trust among customers, employees, or partners. These include things like trust, integrity, decency, openness, respect, and passion.
Starbucks example: the value of “service to community and responsibility” shows up in investments in sustainable coffee supply chains and in fully covered college education for employees.
Airbnb example: the value of “respect for cultures” is reflected in its non-discrimination policy. Both hosts and guests must agree to community standards during registration, which include a commitment to respecting others regardless of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
With clients, we often find that they focus mostly on defining “hygiene values.” In practice, though, these rarely get translated into concrete action. At the same time, they give only minimal attention to the values that should have a real impact on the business and support the company's strategy.
If you want to build a healthy, effective corporate culture, you need to focus on both groups of values. You need to create a solid foundation to build on, while also defining the principles that will support the company's success in business.
Summary of recommendations:
When you start discussing values, make sure you know where you're headed — that is, that you have a clear strategy laying out what you want to achieve and how you'll achieve it.
Think about what kind of culture will get you to your goals, and what its specific traits and characteristics are. For an innovative culture, for example, that might mean experimentation, being first to market, challenging the status quo, failing fast, and so on.
The specifics of your corporate culture should be the foundation for building values that are genuinely unique to your company — not just a copy of what a thousand other companies have on their websites.
Use the concept of habits as a tool for embedding values across the whole organization, both collectively and individually. For an innovative culture, for example, it might make sense to implement Design Sprint concepts or Design Thinking workshops to help generate new ideas.
I help companies set and implement values so they get built into company processes. Want to talk through, with no obligation, how that could work for your company? Reach me at michal.valko@kogi.cz or call +420 601 350 622