Stay focused
The problem that many companies have is that they draw up the
values, and then don’t know how to get their employees to buy in
to them.
“They haven’t thought through how they are going to actually
make it stick and get it to be completely integrated and proliferated throughout the organization,” Kavanaugh says.
All of your hard work to build a foundation of values can be for
naught very quickly if you take your foot off the pedal once the initial development of values is complete.
“The CEO has to be passionate about pushing this on a very regular basis,” Kavanaugh says. “The organization is looking for that
individual to be the driving force behind the value system of that
culture. When that individual starts to take his eye off of it and it
doesn’t seem to be important anymore, that is quickly reflected in
the attitude and actions of employees.”
It doesn’t have to be a lot of work to do it.
“It’s how you act and treat people,” Kavanaugh says. “They have
to be able to see and feel that you are passionate about these
things. If they don’t and they think it’s lip service, you’ll never get
the benefit of implementing something like this.”
Kavanaugh tries to assess the importance that his employees
place on the company’s core values through different means.
“It’s something that we want to use and should be using consistently as a tool to recruit, manage, motivate and retain employees
— and also to terminate. It’s a tool to help them do those things as
we manage our culture, new and departing.”
When you lay a foundation of how to act and follow through in
living by those values at the top, you set the tone for the rest of the
company.
“It makes it a lot easier for people to make decisions because it’s
pretty clear to them what they should and shouldn’t do,”
Kavanaugh says. “They don’t spend a whole lot of time debating,
‘Whoa, should I do this or shouldn’t I do this?’ It’s pretty clear.”
Employees are using the values to make choices at WWT, and
it’s paying off. Revenue reached $2.5 billion for 2007, up from
$1 billion in 2003, and the company now has 1,100 employees.
“A lot of people are asking us, ‘How do you continue to grow
and add to your employee base at a very challenging time?’”
Kavanaugh says. “The performance has been extremely strong
from our employees because of the level of teamwork and execution they have demonstrated that is helping us to work right
through this bubble.
“When you make decisions that are consistent with your value
system, people see that you are very serious about that and they
get it and understand it. If you start turning your head, that’s when
all of a sudden it becomes paper and it has no meaning. It’s critical
that you really have the discipline and the rigor and accountability
throughout the organization that people are going to hold people
accountable to that expectation of how they should act, work and
treat other people.”
HOW TO REACH: World Wide Technology Inc., (314) 569-7000 or www.wwt.com
