It’s been a while since we’ve posted here. It’s interesting to see that the day I’m choosing to write a new article is the also the same day that a PR issue is flaring up in the UK. I won’t go into details, but feel free to go and research into Brewdog and their current media interactions. It’s also the same week that I heard about the #survivingideo hashtag on twitter and the same month that many companies start their pink washing campaigns to coincide with Pride.
The part I find interesting is that the previous post on this blog was about Core Values. It’s all too easy to publish Core Values, but act differently. That article proposed methods for ensuring that the Core Values do indeed become core. Something that many of the brands and companies have omitted to do. Think of Core Values as running through the body of the organisation. They’re part of the blood system and they have to flow to every extremity. Failure to do so and that part of the organisation becomes less healthy. Have the wrong core values and we can end up with unintended consequences and maybe even toxicity.
Incongruent brands do not last. At some point, their customers or employees have enough of the difference between what they’re told and what they observe, and then they act with their feet, their wallet or shout it out across social media.
Another interesting part for me is that two things are happening:
1) in reading about Brewdog, etc, we find ourselves evaluating whether their values are good or not;
2) we also find ourselves questioning whether their corporate behaviour aligns with their core values, or is it say one thing and do another.
We’re also not discussing whether core values can actually be defined or whether they have to be discovered. That’s for another article.
What are you doing about your core values? Have you defined them and how do you ensure that they run through your organisation?