If you were asked to create new global values in three months for 1600 colleagues in 10+ countries with a high level of involvement, would you do it? Read more to find out what we did to make this happen, the bumps on the road and what factors were crucial to succeed.
But Wait...we Already had Values in Place
As stated in the introduction, we were in for an exciting challenge with the project. Additionally, we had pre-existing values in place, meaning that we were not starting from a blank slate. Instead, we had to remove the previous values alongside implementing new ones.
As a digital transformation consulting company, we have experienced growth over the years, incorporating new businesses and team members. As a result, our previous values no longer aligned with our identity and aspirations. Furthermore, they were created from the top down. Given these circumstances, we found it necessary to establish new values that better reflect who we are and where we want to go. This time around, we aimed for a high level of involvement in the development of these values. Should be easy, right?
Where do you Even Start?
After doing some research, benchmarking and setting the plan for the project we decided to have a values kick-off to all colleagues globally, announcing that we will start the project. One of the strengths of this project from start to finish was top management support. Having our CEO and other leaders emphasize the significance of values played a crucial role in the project's success.
Here is What we did to Discover our Values
Following our values kick-off, we conducted an extensive value survey that collected over 2000 value suggestions from colleagues across the globe. We also added 9 global workshops with over 100 colleagues attending to discuss and dive further into value creation. This was the first time a forum was created where we met across countries to talk values, the feedback was very positive.
After gathering the suggestions from the survey and workshops, we decided to hold a vote, with approximately 850 colleagues voting for their preferred values. Then finally, we presented the favorites to the group management. After some workshopping, group management decided on our final values from our colleagues’ guidance (staying true to the results of who we are but also aligning it with where we want to go).
After some designing and wordsmithing from experts, they were launched during a celebratory Value-launch call. Here are our values as verbs because it’s something we do. 
Our 5 success factors
- Core team support from the get-go. Trust and support along the way from top leaders in our company including our CEO, COO and People Director.
- Internal project manager with established relationships.
- Creating a high level of involvement and buy-in during the creation process using surveys, workshops, discussions and voting along the way.
- Combination of global and local communication. To encourage more colleagues to vote on the survey, we provided local country leaders with an example email template.
- Having our own Academy to be able to create training material was an important part of launching the values.
You might still be wondering why such a tight deadline was given in the first place. We knew that deciding on values is one part, now comes the biggest challenge: implementing them and keeping the values alive. That is where we need to spend most of our time.
Stay tuned for our upcoming blog post as we reveal the exciting initiatives we are undertaking and the important role our culture ambassadors play in bringing our values to life.
Click on the links to read more about our values and leadership principles (the project after we decided on the values).