The Importance of Understanding the Values of Your Employer/Customer
July 2nd, 2010
In one of my previous articles I wrote about the importance of understanding our own values. However, for those of you who are employed or even self-employed, there is another set of values you need to be aware of.
In the case of self-employment, it is important to understand the values of your customers. Naturally, you can’t always know them all personally and understand exactly how much their values score on your value elicitation sheet! What you can do, though, is to add the values “spectrum” to your list of description when targeting your ideal customer. My guess is that the values of your customers will not be too far from your own!
When working for a Company, things might get slightly more complicated, though. The Company might have some values you fully indentify yourself with yet there might be some that you don’t agree with. Furthermore, many Companies make the mistake of publishing values that are “politically correct” but which the management doesn’t live up to at all! Sometimes a Company does not apply the same set of values equally towards customers and employees. Occasionally, there may even be a different interpretation placed on a word that represents the value. After all, there is a diversity that comes with a large number of employees in every Company.
So where does that leave you as an employee? If the identification with the Company’s values is important to you (and it should be, considering how much time you spend on average at your workplace), choose wisely.
The truly successful Companies are those that communicate their values very clearly. They make sure that they explain exactly what their understanding of the meaning of each value is. And above all, they treat their business as well as their employees in line with those values.
If the Company manages to implement a collective value system amongst its employees, it has a potential to be really successful.
If you are lucky to be a part of such Company, I congratulate you.
For those of you, who feel that you are compromising your value system at your workplace, you have two options: Change workplace to one that will be in line with your personal values. If you like your job and don’t want to leave, raise your concerns at Company meetings and share your observations regarding the Company’s values. There might be more co-workers that feel the same way. It isn’t unlikely that it is time for the Company to review their values. Many Companies do it on a regular basis.
Natalie Ekberg is an international personal and executive coach and offers self-improving, motivational and coaching e-courses and e-books as well as face to face or telephone coaching.