How to align your organisation with its values

Inspiring your team and keeping them motivated isn’t always easy as a leader – here’s how to align your people with your organisation’s values and get the most out of your workforce

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Forbes

Your official job description as a leader may outline responsibilities, deliverables and metrics-based targets you’re expected to meet each year. However, organisational leaders are also charged with one critical function that’s less often documented: inspiration.

If this conjures a vision of standing up in front of your team and delivering rousing orations, don’t worry. What successful organisations know about inspiring their teams is much simpler, and it involves less stage time than you’d expect.

The key to developing an engaged, productive and inspired organisation centres around how you align your people with your organisation’s values. Here are a few simple ways you can get started.

Integrate your values and mission into your language

Some organisations naturally adopt jargon, taglines and colloquialisms associated with their industry. However, integrating your values and mission into your organisation’s vernacular shouldn’t require a dictionary.

Consider your official purpose and vision or mission statement as well as how you use it today. Many organisations include this statement on their website and in their annual report but fail to revisit it elsewhere. If this sounds familiar, you have the opportunity to integrate this well-crafted language into your narrative.

Weave your mission statement into your materials in a way that feels natural and approachable. Update your internal channels, like your intranet, message boards and signage. Provide teams with desktop backgrounds, printed takeaways and branded swag that reiterates your purpose.

Begin meetings with icebreakers that review key mission moments, aligning them with what the group is working on. For example, your development team may be updating back-end systems, which sounds unexciting, but the result is a better experience for clients. Deepen this connection by sharing how their work makes a difference in your clients’ lives, which can facilitate stronger vision alignment.

Connect every team member’s purpose to your ‘why’ from the outset

When a new team member joins your organisation, how are they welcomed? If your new employee orientation is the same slide deck and office tour from a decade ago, it’s time to make changes.

Successful leaders know that aligning team members with company values starts far before an employee’s first day. Ideally, identifying well-aligned talent begins with the recruitment process. Recruit for the skills your team needs but integrate key components of values-based hiring.

Increasingly popular, this human resources approach provides a framework for teams to identify the characteristics of engaged employees they want to target. To identify this in your organisation, you’ll need to assess the team you have today. Partner with your HR team to evaluate the information you have on file and determine whether more is needed.

Identify the key values your top performers possess, and update your job descriptions, interview questions and onboarding journey to elicit and underscore those values. Bring this update full circle and train your existing employees in these values, too.

Get your whole team on board with this approach, adding relevant assessments and metrics into your performance appraisal process. Finally, integrate values alignment into your career development plans to solidify its importance among emerging leaders.

Set the gold standard for values-based leadership

As a leader, your behaviour sets the tone for your team. Conduct a self-assessment of how well you align your work and workplace behaviours with your organisation’s values. You might even meet separately with an executive coach to get an unbiased opinion. Level-set your behaviour to match what you expect of your organisation.

Be present in discussions about values and how your leadership team can be instilling and reinforcing values-based behaviour. Start and end meetings by reviewing your organisation’s purpose, which can be centring and encourage a focus on the core issues.

Celebrate values-based wins large and small. Acknowledge values in action as they happen, which can reinforce their importance in the moment. Use formal appreciation and award opportunities to cement your organisation’s commitment to its values, which can further motivate teams to perform.

Train junior leaders on these principles, giving them ample leeway to acknowledge and award values-based behaviours as they see fit. Use storytelling to connect your team to the organisation’s values in a way that surpasses metrics. By taking this approach to values alignment, you can connect people, departments and purpose.

Shared values lead to shared success

There’s a reason why high-performing teams seem to work together effortlessly. Synchronised talent aligned with a shared purpose leads to better results, engagement and retention.

Elevate the importance of your organisation’s values in every facet of your business, fostering and reinforcing desired behaviours along the way. The natural rhythm of your team’s ‘why’ will emerge, leading to stronger connections with one another and your shared purpose.