ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a world of difference between values on paper and values in the rough and tumble of the workplace and market. But when it comes to understanding values and making them comes alive, there is not a lot of guidance out there: cloud forests of books on business value, very few on business values. One of the most common but understated of the list of personal values is conformity; and it is this that helps to give shared values real traction. Shared values are the motivations, explicit or implicit, that can be considered to be part of the culture of an organisation as a whole. A well-developed set of values, coherent and shared across the business, has the potential to create a powerful alignment across the organisation, from top to bottom. Four values emerged are ‘achieving together’, ‘engaging people’, ‘passion for innovation’ and ‘very human’ which were approved by global meeting of 150 top leaders in the company.
