When Values Mean Nothing

​Our values should guide every conversation, decision, and interaction.  Our values should anchor every product and service we provide and every channel we operate.  If we can’t link what we do to one of our values, we should ask ourselves why we’re doing it.  It’s that simple.
 
We have five primary values that are based on our vision and provide the foundation for everything we do:
 

• People as a competitive advantage
• Ethics
• What’s right for customers
• Diversity and inclusion
• Leadership

 
The above verbiage sounds great, doesn’t it?  These are values of a major U.S. bank in support of their vision:  “We want to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.”  Who wouldn’t want to work for or do business with a company that believes this?
 
Sadly, the above words, taken directly from the Wells Fargo website, mean absolutely nothing.  A slow-burning scandal that took place for years, low-level bank employees siphoned money from customers and opened bogus accounts and cards using current customers’ personal information, all to meet sales quotas and get sales bonuses.  Obviously, this bank’s belief in ethics and customers was simply rhetoric. 
 
In the end, Wells Fargo customers lost money and 5,300 bank employees lost their jobs.  One of those employees was Carrie Tolstedt, the senior executive in charge of Wells Fargo’s branches.  Amazingly, even though arguably she was the senior executive in charge of the fraudulent scheme, she was able to walk away with a $125 million bonus!
 
How can this happen?  How can a company that espouses the customer and ethics have such widespread fraud?  I believe it’s a lack of accountability and a lack of leadership.
 
I’m confident that if you asked Wells Fargo employees, “What are Wells’ values and how do you live them?” you would get blank stares in return.  In fact, asking employees to simply recite the values would be met with that same blank response.  Obviously, no one at Wells Fargo was asking employees to name and live out their values.  To Wells Fargo employees, those values were simply a nice plaque that hung on the bank branch walls.
 
While all employees are responsible for living out the corporate values, the person who should live out those values more than anyone is the top leader, in this case Wells Fargo’s CEO John Stumpf.  Even when announcing Tolstedt’s departure, he complimented her for being “a champion for our customers.”  Apparently, employees, ethics, and customers were just words on a wall for Mr. Stumpf as well.
 
So how can organizations avoid Wells Fargo’s situation?  By openly talking about corporate values, by practicing those values daily, and by having a leadership team that models those values.  If you aren’t putting deliberate effort against those values, they will not become ingrained in everyday behaviors and actions.
 
But what about your company and your leadership?  What if your leaders refuse to live out the corporate values?  First, you have a choice to make.  Do you stay or go?  Do you remain with your current organization where “gutless leadership,” a term used to describe Mr. Stumpf’s governance, could lead the entire organization down a very wrong path?  Or do you find another organization where leadership believes in and lives out their values?
 
Second, and most importantly, think about your own actions.  Regardless of how leadership and everyone around you behave, you can be true to your corporate values.  With every action, decision, and conversation, you have an opportunity to align with your organization’s mission and values.
 
So hold yourself accountable to making your organization’s values ring true.  Doing so will most likely help you engage more with your work and your colleagues, ultimately finding greater job success and satisfaction.
 
Do you have any corporate values stories, either good or bad?  Please share and start a conversation!
 

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