Guide to Codifying Your Culture

Codifying your
Culture.
The What, Why and How of Values
Will&Progress
@davidwillans

Most organisations say they have values,
but they don’t. They have words on
posters, or wallpaper.
If they had values and used them, people
would be happier. Work would be done
better. Businesses would move faster.
But they don’t. Here’s how you can change
that.
@davidwillans

What good
values are
@davidwillans

[val·ues] | mass noun
Principles that are intrinsically valuable or
desired.
Principles of decision making and behaviour
prioritised over others.
Good values are…
1. TRUE
If not, they’re a lie and people won’t believe them.
2. DEFINED
With clear behaviours for each, so people know
how to live them.
3. STRETCHING
So they make you better every day.
4. EASY TO SAY
So you can use them in conversation to make
decisions.
5. COUNTED ON ONE HAND
If you can’t remember them, how can you use
them?

Your organisation
already has them
TRUTH
If they aren’t true, by definition they’re a lie.
DEFINED
With clear behaviours so people know how to
live them.
STRETCHING
So they make you better every day.
EASY TO SAY
So you can use them in conversation to make
decisions.
3, 4 OR 5 IN NUMBER
If you can’t remember them, how can you use
them?
Five rules of good values
Values are the framework for ‘the way we do
things here’. How people behave. Your
culture.
When defining your values, you’re building the
framework of your culture.
Then you can understand whether what you
have will create the business you want.
Something Uber’s investors might have
spotted if they’d paid attention.
Once you understand your values, you can
use them to shape your culture.

The value of
values
@davidwillans

The value of values
ENGAGEMENTSPEED TALENT BRAND

Speed
Sandberg, Zuckerberg, Benioff, Bezos,
Huffington, Hoffman and Musk all talk about the
value of speed in business.
Moving forward means deciding what to do.
People can only make faster decisions if they
know what matters to the business when they
make them.
Values make it clear what’s important in decision
making.
Less time spent talking about what to do. More
time spent doing it.
“All events but the truly
unique require a generic
solution. They require a
rule, a policy, or a
principle.”
Peter Drucker

Engagement
97% of the Best Places to Work have values
statements. They put their values at the heart of
everything they do.
These businesses have the most engaged
employees. Which means they care about the
quality of their work, the people they work with
and the business they’re working for.

97% of Best Workplaces
have values statements.
They put their values at the
heart of everything they do.
“At Pure...what we failed to
understand is by dummy-proofing
all the systems, we would have a
system where only dummies
wanted to work there, which was
exactly what happened.”
Reed Hastings, Netflix founder
Talent
There are two ways to manage. Policies and
procedures, or principles. Reed Hastings,
founder of Pure Software and Netflix, knows
both well.
Netflix is famed for its principles approach to
management. Their expenses policy is ‘act in
the best interests of Netflix’. That’s it.
Pure Software was all policies and procedures.
As Reed said, this didn’t work out well from a
talent perspective.

Brand
Byron Sharp is one of the world’s leading
marketing academics.
He says brands grow through mental and physical
availability. Mental availability depends on the
quality and quantity of memory structures related to
the brand.
The more consistent you are, the more memorable
you are. Consistent action comes from decisions
made with consistent principles, or values.

How to define
values
@davidwillans

One fable
@davidwillans
Codifying your culture: How to find & define your values
Traced back to 1000 BC, the story of the blindmen and
One fable, four simple steps

One fable
@davidwillans
Codifying your culture: How to find & define your values
Traced back to 1000 BC, the story of the blindmen and
One fable, four simple steps
A group of blind men heard about a strange animal coming to town.
The first grasped the trunk, said “It’s like a thick snake". Another held the ear, saying it
was like a fan. Another, holding the leg, said it’s like a tree-trunk.
This 3,000-year-old fable ends with either a fight, when they refused to listen to each
other. Or a true understanding of what an elephant is when they do.
Whatever the ending, the point’s the same. Each person’s perspective is valid but only
holds part of the truth.
The same is true for your values because the ‘way we do things around here’ already
exists. Your job is to define and shape your values as best you can.

Four simple steps
@davidwillans
1. LISTEN 3. DEFINE2. DISTIL 4. REFINE
Icons designed by Freepik and Prosymbols from Flaticon

1. Listen
@davidwillans
Listen to the voices from every corner of your
organisation, not just the team at the top.
If you’re a small company, run a few
workshops.
If you’re a big company, it’s a bigger job. Run a
lot of workshops or do a survey. Whatever you
choose, you need qualitative insights first, then
a way of categorising and quantifying them.

@davidwillans
There are lots of questions you can use. What,
how and why questions all give different types
of answer. Every word must be carefully chosen
to hit three objectives.
UNDERSTANDING THE PRINCIPLES YOU
LIVE WHEN YOU’RE AT YOUR BEST
● What makes a person a great fit here?
● How do you describe what it means to ‘do
things right’ here?
UNDERSTANDING WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE
● Tell me a story of what makes you proud to work
at your company? Why does this make you
proud?
MAKING SURE YOUR VALUES WILL STRETCH
YOU
● What principles will you need to focus on to be
successful in the future?
1. Listen
WHAT TO ASK

2. Distil
@davidwillans
Now you’ve got the data, you need to organise it to
see the concepts emerging. These concepts are the
starting point for defining your values.
HARMONISE
People use different words for the same concept
(Proactive, Self-Starter, Gets Things Done etc.) so the
first job is to harmonise the meaning or concepts.
WEIGHT
Then you can start weighting the concepts, so you can
see where the weight of sentiment is. In true Blue
Peter style, here’s some I made earlier.
For smaller organisations, a word cloud does the job. This one’s of
the answer to ‘what makes someone a great fit’ for client who’d just
secured Series B funding.
For larger organisations, you’ll need a stats package. This one’s of
the answer to ‘what does it mean to do things right here’ for a multi
billion dollar tech company.

Ask yourself questions like, what will happen if we live
this value? Is it really the source of great outcomes for
us? Does combining these two, three, four concepts
give us something good? Is there something deeper
that underpins this concept? Is this too deep and
vague?
To ease the headache, play with thinking forwards and
backwards and second order thinking.
3. Define
@davidwillans
WHERE IT ALL STARTS TO COME
TOGETHER
Get all the data out and see what themes are
emerging. Or ‘where the heat is’ as an old
Creative Director I worked with would say.
WHERE YOUR BRAIN IS GOING TO HURT
With the concepts forming, the next job is
thinking them through. This is where your brain
will hurt.

3. Define
@davidwillans
Driven / Proactive /
Focus
Start what you finish.
Pragmatic over perfection.
Ship V1, start on V2.
E.g. Tech platform change
Team / Collaborate /
Trust
Leaning on each other.
Considerate of others.
Trusting each other. If
failure, trust good intention.
E.g. Breakfast news
feature
Open / Speaking up /
Right thing
Doing the right thing.
Image empowering not
image airbrushing. Voicing
opinions.
E.g. New data team
Delight users / Quality
/ Customer focus
Deliver great customer
experience. Be
entrepreneurial.
E.g. Largest Client
WHAT YOU’RE AIMING FOR
This example is from one of my tech clients. They
had just secured $10m Series B funding and
wanted to get everyone aligned before taking a big
leap forward.
You want to make three things:
The values space. The concepts you’ve found that
connect with each other in a true and useful way.
The behaviours that sit underneath. Both the
ones that exist and new ones you want to introduce.
A story to illustrate it. The ones that show this
value is true.

@davidwillans
Here you’re testing the values, refining the
words to describe them and the behaviours you
want from them.
ARE THEY BULLSHIT?
First you want to make sure your values aren’t
bullshit. Something you will stick to even when
times are very tough. Imagine the hardest
situations your business could be in, then apply
your values. A good way to do this as a group
is using Even Over statements e.g. Speed
Even Over Quality. Learning Even Over Profit.
ARE THEY CLEARLY EXPRESSED?
This is where you test them with your team. The aim is
to understand how your team interprets the values and
behaviours. This is a process of iteration and
refinement to make them sharp and clear. It is not the
time for a complete rewrite though, because you have
already worked through a data driven process to define
them.
4. Refine

What next?
*Done as in defined. To get value from your values, you need to use them. Leaders role modelling them, making them part of your
meetings, performance reviews and every other bit of your business. If you’re straining your eyes to read this, here’s a reward.
Bosh. Done*.

@davidwillans
4. Refine
Here you’re testing the values and refining the words to
describe them and the behaviours you want from them.
Are they bullshit?
First you want to make sure your values aren’t bullshit.
Something you’ll go back on when things get tough. Imagine
the hardest situations your business could be in, then apply
your values. A good shorthand way to do this with others is
Even Over statements e.g. Speed Even Over Quality.
Learning Even Over Profit.
Are they clearly expressed?
This is where you test them with your team. The aim is to
understand how your team interpret the values and
behaviours. This is a process of iteration and refinement. It
is not a complete rewrite, because you have already worked
through a data driven defining process.
“If you don't stick to
your values when they're
being tested, they're
not values, they're
hobbies.”
Jon Stewart

About
This guide is built from years of experience
helping companies work out what they stand for,
what they believe in and why they matter.
Values is a big part of answering those
questions. It’s also gets results quickly because
it’s all about decisions.
I’ve done this work with global multi-brand
corporates like TripAdvisor, famous brands like
O2 and venture-backed start-ups.
I started my career in a values-led organisation.
I know first hand how good being part of a gang
on a mission is. Hopefully this Guide will help
you build a great gang where you work.
I’m David by the way. If you’ve got questions, or
want help, get in contact.
david@willandprogress.com

If you want a regular email with
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to live their values, sign up here.
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luck!
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Guide to Codifying Your Culture

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