the values scorecard
closing the strategic planning loop
The values debate has moved on. Today’s challenge is how to connect values centre-stage to the business planning and strategic management process. Attiva casts light on a new approach.
Since the early 90s, organisations have increasingly bought in to the concept of corporate values. No longer the preserve of pioneering, west-coast CEOs, companies in unpredictable business conditions have seen first-hand the merits of a values-based approach in managing people’s productivity and defining new ways of operating.
Companies have implemented values with varying degrees of dedication and success. Committed organisations have often made good progress, not only to communicate the values but to embed them into their processes and systems, performance appraisal being a good example.
But one central aspect continues to elude many - how to integrate values into their strategic planning process? Despite the best of intentions and board-level commitment, companies struggle to edge values out from under the ‘people and culture’ mantle and into the mainstream business performance and measurement process.
The impact on organisations varies. Managers in a business may champion the values but when they discuss the ‘real issue’ of delivering to the business, the values take a back seat. Alternatively, the maverick high-performer may believe he or she can ignore the values so long as they deliver their target, sending a damaging signal to the rest of the organisation.
The solution, the Values Scorecard, came out of Attiva’s belief that the disconnect between values and business planning could not, in reality, be that hard to bridge. The Balanced Scorecard of the 90s had already moved business much closer to integrating supposed intangible, non-financial measures - perspectives it calls 'customer', 'innovation & learning' and 'internal processes' - into the planning process.
By replacing these standard perspectives with a company’s values, Attiva discovered it could create a highly tailored, personalised framework that allows a company to plan and set business measures directly in relation to its own unique competitive edge - not a series of generalised measures relevant to many companies the world over.
Once integrated into an existing strategic planning process - normally a relatively straightforward exercise welcomed by the managers - the final pieces of the values jigsaw fall into place.
For employees, the values become real, embodied in tangible measures to which they can relate. In the planning process, individuals and teams translate the values into practical action steps, bridging the divide between corporate statements and their individual roles. And people are now accountable for living the values - even the most cynical cannot escape the direct correlation with performance.
Values also lose their mystery, and become much less remote, less precious as they infiltrate daily life. People can start to touch them, explore them, experience them - as a client describes it, "throw them around and see what happens". The conscious barriers fall away, as values naturally embed into people’s mindsets.
The Values scorecard also provides a catalyst for creating a culture of continuous review and feedback. The points of reference are fixed in the planning process, giving people the freedom and confidence to question, challenge, review and change their actions, safe in the knowledge that they are still focused on the overall company direction.
Sitting at the heart of the planning process, values can finally take their rightful place as a set of living, breathing principles, that drive the business forward and create the cornerstone for competitive edge.