Business values rule. Real ones, that is. Commonly not the ones you see on the placard in the conference room–“Innovation, Creativity, Discipline” or whatever.
I’m talking about real values. The values that management can’t prescribe, but rather that they have to cultivate among their organizations over long periods of time. Values that people hold genuinely.
The kinds of values about which I’m talking are what I believe to be the most important consideration of a management team during the founding of a business. Values inform long-term direction, they inform strategy changes, they inform target market choices, and of course they inform hiring strategy. They also inform management team cohesion.
Like I said, you don’t observe a company’s values on a placard or a wiki or during a press conference or during an investor briefing. What you see there is marketing. You observe values in the assumptions colleagues make about their work and about each other. You observe values in the language colleagues use. You observe values in systems, protocol and chain of command, or the entire lack thereof.
Very soon, I’m going to write a post that plays around with values toward which I’ll want to drive my own business, one day. This post is about signifiers of values that I’ve noticed at my current and prior employers. Most of these will come from my experiences at three large tech companies. Some may also come from my experiences at smaller companies and agencies. Have you seen any like these among your employers?
Buckle up!
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#1: The Term “Best Known Method”
At one of my employers, the term “Best Known Method” was so institutionalized, that it was abbreviated to “BKM.” In standard industry parlance, it means “best practice.” It’s the first way you should consider getting a thing done.
“Best Known Method” is beautiful in a way that “Best Practice” is not, however. “Best Known Method” implies openness to new ideas. It implies an expectation that, one day, we’ll find a better method. Whoever brings us that method gets a pat on the back. “Best Practice” on the other hand, functions as a sort of biblical proclamation that disgruntled service managers staple to the cubicles of pigheaded program managers in order to show them the true way of the world.
“Best practice for YouTube video length is 2 minutes or less, so cut out 5 minutes,” says the video team manager before watching. Meanwhile, a catalog of 2-minute, 10-view videos and a picture of a top hat against a black background laugh behind their back.
“BKM is making the subject line of an e-mail no longer than seven words. Anybody have a better idea?” verifies the winningest program manager in the world.
#2: Division by Goal Rather than Function
This is an example of a slight way by which a team’s values might differ from the surrounding company’s. One employer of mine usually structured itself by function first and business unit second. You’d see a team full of ad media planners, a team full of product marketing communication managers, a team full of regional marketing communication managers, and a team full of event managers. Each member of a team, then, would align with a business unit or a market. One regional marcom manager, for example, was responsible for the Northwestern US and Canada. One ad media planner was responsible for one of the company’s major software products, for another example.
However, after a short time knowing them, the ad media planning team restructured. Instead of aligning with business units, media planners would be from then on assigned to company goals. One member of the team was the transactional ad planner. Another was the branding ad planner. The transactional planner ran campaigns that generated sales and money for the company. Click on their ad so you can buy the company’s thing. The branding planner ran campaigns that drove people to the website. Click on their ad so you can understand or like the company more and maybe buy later.
This communicated two things about values at the company, to me. The first is that both the team and the company (because their decision met no political blowback) value decentralized decision-making. The second is that the team value what one accomplishes for the company more than whom else at the company that person supports. “What did you do for us this month?” is more important than “How well-connected are you at the company?”
#3: Outsourcing by Degrees
How much of a given discipline (marketing, finance, engineering, etc.) is outsourced, and how much is kept in-house? If you look around and only see coordinators in-house, then it might be that you’re working for a company that values fast execution over thoughtful planning and creativity. If you’re surrounded by creative functions, then values may align in the opposite way.
Right now, I’m thinking of two large tech employers of mine. One had ad media planning and ad creative in-house. At this stage in my career, that blows my mind. This is my only employer that worked this way, and it’s my understanding that this is exceedingly rare in the mature-company world. Even more amazing is that the teams sat right next to each other in the office. This is a company that values getting it done right more than getting it done fast. Both the ad team and the creative team were, in turn, deeply connected with the company’s business units. Even if they didn’t understand a product or a market well, obtaining that understanding only meant putting a cafeteria date on a product marketer’s calendar.
The other employer I have in mind kept neither media planning nor creative in-house. Media planning was managed by an agency, while creative was managed by an office of contract workers. Leftover in the marketing department were solely coordinators called “marcom managers” and “media relations managers.” Their evaluations (and incentives) were based on how many marcom or media campaigns were executed under their name. They were not evaluated based on the degree to which each campaign achieved the company’s goals. Run enough campaigns over time, and eventually your numbers will get to where management wants them. You need processes and connections to succeed at that company. You don’t need access to analytics platforms or sales data.