Are today’s business values as we know them dead?

In Mirrored Horizons’ experience, values have become so generic across people and businesses that they no longer provide us information on what it is that differentiates one business from the next.  

Are you familiar with the all too common business values Collaboration, Innovation, Passion, Integrity? 

Don’t worry, we are too. 

The tricky thing with these common values is that businesses can place value on them yet still not possess them or practice them. When this occurs, we have seen values undermined and being used in contradiction to their intended purpose. This drives the opposite behaviours of what these values set out to achieve in the first instance.

Mirrored Horizons has taken this dated outlook of values being slapped on walls and diaries to developing cultural principles that create differentiation and bring personality to businesses brand. 

Cultural principles are directional in nature and application. They can assist in moving you through decision making as they provide reasoning as to ‘why’ businesses are making particular decisions.

Developing a set of cultural principles takes what is important to your business (your values) and develops them further into how you’re going to practice and live these every day, “actions speak louder than words.” Your cultural principles will form the basis of how you will act and respond in any given situation. 

Businesses can only embark on developing/establishing cultural principles once you have a true understanding of who you are and what your purpose is. 

Cultural principles become beacons that tell businesses or its people when they are off track. They help to bring businesses back into alignment to live in accordance with who they are and what their purpose is.  

A cultural principle tells everyone “how things are done around here.” 

The question is, is your business ready to embrace who they are and develop a set of cultural principles that extends beyond what we’ve known to be the status quo for so long?

Yes? 

Then let's bury these dead business values together! 

Written by Co-Founders of Mirrored Horizons, Julia Strangio-McRae and Emmaline Raggatt.