Use external examples
The need to implement a list of core values struck some people at Solae as unnecessary or the equivalent of attempting to fix something that wasn’t broken. So Rhenman had to prove to his people that this was in fact a needed move and something that would benefit the organization.
“That is a challenge,” Rhenman says. “You have to make it personal. You have to really try to take examples that people connect with and say, ‘Yeah, that could have happened to us.’ It has to start from the top. I have to be a role model for it, and I have to ask the same from all my leaders to be role models and champions for our core values.”
Rhenman used case histories and put together presentations using stories of situations that happened outside of the Solae world to drive home his message.
“We take examples of things that happen in the external world and then we discuss it and say, ‘If we face something like this, what would we do?’” Rhenman says. “It really gets people to understand our thinking and helps get us aligned.”
As the process moved along, Rhenman also put some of his employees in the position of conducting some of the training sessions.
“The best way to really understand what we mean is to be put in charge of the training,” Rhenman says. “If you have to teach it to others, you really have to understand it. We do a lot of that.”
The expectation is that everyone will eventually take their turn in getting up and talking to their peers.
“It’s getting people to think it through themselves,” Rhenman says. “It’s not only that other people hear from their peers, but it’s themselves getting involved and getting into it. Hearing from others creates this expectation that, yeah, everybody is living this and everybody brings up examples that they saw themselves. What caused that? What was the behavior that caused it? What can you do to prevent it?”
The core values became ubiquitous, appearing throughout the company and on the agenda at regular meetings. The first part of each meeting would now be dedicated to talking about one of the company’s core values and its importance to the organization.
“It could be an external event that we have seen, or it could be just a reminder of something to get people in the forefront of thinking about it,” Rhenman says.
The intent was to show the importance of core values to an organization. But Rhenman didn’t want employees to think that just because you have core values, all of your problems are solved.
“It’s something every company needs to have,” Rhenman says. “But that alone is not what makes a great company. If you don’t have it, it’s hard, in my personal view, to have a sustainable and great company, and you put it at risk.”
