"Every man is obliged to honor his homeland with his private conduct, as well as in the public one" 1
With the accelerated development of management techniques in the second half of the 20th century in the world, managers are increasingly aware of the need for strategic leadership based on shared values; but in most cases this reality remains at the ideal level, since in daily practice a dichotomy between speech and action is appreciated. An old proverb proposes that saying is easier than doing, the author Nuria Chinchilla 2 to refer to companies that act in this way points out that they are “hypocritical organizations”.
According to Milton Rokeach 3, professor at the University of Michigan, shared value “is a conviction or belief that is stable over time that a certain mode of conduct or an existential purpose is personally or socially preferable to its opposite mode of conduct or its existential purpose. contrary. "
When speaking of shared values, it is necessary to differentiate between final values (included in the mission and vision of the company) and instrumental values. The latter are appropriate or necessary modes of conduct to achieve our existential goals or values.
To achieve the implementation of change in a company, it is necessary to move from beliefs to behaviors through values (see figure 1), taking into account in this aspect the beliefs, norms and attitudes of the members of the organization. Beliefs are thought structures, elaborated and rooted throughout learning, that serve to explain reality to us and that precede the configuration of values, norms are rules of conscientious behavior, while values are criteria to evaluate and accept and / or reject norms. Conflicts of values translate into the existence of contradictory norms and behaviors.
Attitudes reflect how we feel about something or someone and predict our tendency to act in a certain way, that is why to modify behaviors, rather than directly trying to change attitudes, what you have to do is modify the values and beliefs that they precede them, not just the rules. (see figure 1).
Shared values absorb organizational complexity, guide the strategic vision and increase professional commitment, as well as constitute a tool that allows identifying, promoting and legitimizing the type of organizational change to achieve the implementation of strategic direction in companies, which which would contribute to increase the effectiveness in the process of change in them. It would also help to achieve strategic thinking, strengthen the strategic attitude in leaders, both at the strategic apex and in the middle line, as well as preserve the strategic intention of the process, continuous learning and the commitment of the members of the operational nucleus, elements that are deeply questioned. by Henrry Mintzberg 4 to traditional strategic management models.
It should be borne in mind that if the basic beliefs and attitudes of the members of a company are not compatible with the need for change, no matter how well formulated the process of implementing the strategic direction is, it will not work, since the managers they will continue to direct with the conceptions and patterns accumulated throughout their experience; with the difference that they will use new tools, or what is the same, "The daily routine continues with a new technology." This attitude is called cognitive dissonance.
Figure 1. Sequence between beliefs and results
In any organization that strategic direction is implemented if the culture is not stabilized, which means that there is a correspondence between the basic beliefs, norms and attitudes of most of its members with the necessary instrumental values, the change that pursued with such implementation will not have the expected results. That is why on many occasions we hear researchers suggest the failure of strategic management in companies that are implemented, but in reality what has happened is that the tools of strategic management have been used without making the necessary cultural change or whatever. in the same way, a change was made at the explicit level.
Edgar H. Schein 5 states that the culture of any company is composed of two essential levels. See figure 2.
- The level of what is thought of in the company. This is implicit and is made up of the basic beliefs and assumptions of the members of the company and above all their essential values, defining the latter as the primary values of the prevailing culture. Salvador García and Shimon Dollan 6 refer to the primary values defining them as the personality of the company, considering an adequate psycho-literary way to treat the term when considering the company as a living being. The explicit or observable level. This is subdivided into two more:
- What the company does. It is made up of the procedures, behaviors, flowcharts, rituals and technology of the organization, what the company appears to be. External image in general (logo, buildings, location)
Figure No 2. Constituent levels of the culture of a company according to Edgar Schein
If the criteria of the aforementioned authors, those considered adequate, are assumed, then it is necessary to maintain the mental health of the organizations to achieve the final values of the same with a maximum of effectiveness and a minimum of resistance to changes, time that all members feel personally and professionally fulfilled with the activities that they carry out day after day in the companies they work for, that is, making the aspirations and personal interests of the members of the organization coincide with the goals and mission of the organization.
Kujiro Nonaka points out 7 “A company is not a machine but a living organism, and as such it has a collective sense of identity (…) a shared impression of what the company is…”
On the other hand, it must be taken into account that individual values are fundamentally constituted in childhood and adolescence from the social models of parents, teachers and friends. So how to develop the shared values of the members of our companies?
To answer this question, the following aspects must be taken into account:
- The beliefs and values of the founders of the company. The ideas and principles of the founding team tend to lose their presence as the company grows over time, but those with a strong cultural identity maintain a coherence of principles inherited from the founder. The beliefs and values of the current leadership. Sometimes when a leader is promoted or assigned to run a company, he seeks to revitalize or radically modify the beliefs and values of its founder or predecessor, having to properly manage the conflict between the traditional and the modern. The beliefs and values of the workers. Theorists argue that the reward system plays an essential role in this regard.The training and influence of consultants. The continuous learning of cadres and workers as a tool for change. The existing legal regulations. Labor, environmental, economic, legal legislation, etc., influences the beliefs and values of the members of the companies. The rules of the market game. In the market of free competition, it imposes rules that permeate the system of values and beliefs in companies, sometimes the pressure of competitors fixes the belief that the result is what matters, without taking into account the means to achieve it, (Machiavellianism) which is appreciated daily in countries with a market economy. The social values of the historical moment. Current values are not the same as at the beginning of the 20th century and they will not be the same as those of the 21st century. The cultural tradition of society. There is a mutual influence between social and business values. The results of the company. A company that achieves good results and that explicitly includes honesty in dealing with its customers in its value systems will tend to perpetuate this value as essential to its business. Yet that same company continually falls short of its goals and may rethink its value system.
To make shared values a strategic management tool to legitimize cultural change in a company, the following steps should be followed:
I. Make a diagnosis of the basic beliefs of the members of the organization. Once the information is obtained, the values chosen by the group are listed in order of importance to define the current scale of values and basic beliefs of the organization.
II. Define the scale of values and / or basic beliefs necessary to achieve change during the implementation of the strategic direction. For which the delphi method or other expert techniques are used. Finally, both criteria are taken to a comparative table in order to establish a gap between the scale of real values that the company has and those that it needs to achieve the magnitude and exchange rate.
III. Establish the necessary exchange rate that can be:
- Change of beliefs and values Change of image and change of culture.
After establishing the need and type of change, the three phases of change must be kept in mind.
1. Thawing beliefs or values with the current status quo.
It consists of emotionally "warming" (worrying) the "ice blocks" or resistance based on non - acceptance of the realities that drive the need for change. For this, the following mechanisms must be used:
- Recognize the fulfillment of expectations of success Induce (guilt) for the values not maintained or (anxiety) for the objectives not fulfilled. No change starts from the state of satisfaction. Transmit emotional security and acceptance of the breach of certain expectations in order to be able to tolerate the recording of negative information and thus trying to maintain the global self-esteem of those who have to change at all costs.
If you want someone to change, negative information about their behavior must always be accompanied by positive information from other areas that are developing satisfactorily. In this phase there are typically feelings of disidentification and distance from the past, as well as disorientation with respect to the future.
2. Behavior change through cognitive restructuring.
It's about feeling and reacting to things differently, based on a new point of view about them. For this, two activities must be stimulated:
- Exploring the environment to obtain new relevant information, how are the best in the sector where our company competes doing it? How is it done in our company? How should we do it to match or exceed the best? Identification with a new possibility of action. A model organization is identified (it must be the best in the sector to which the company belongs) to compare our performance with respect to it, which will allow to increase effectiveness through learning.
This intermediate phase of restructuring is where technical, psychological, social, etc. resistance forces can most influence. As these forces of resistance are managed, the desired future state will be created, generating commitment to the institutionalization of change. The existence of a transformative leadership that legitimizes change from the outset is absolutely critical whether or not to confront the forces of resistance.
3. Stabilization.
The promoting forces are stabilized and the reduction of the impeding forces thus reassuring the system and generating a stable commitment to the new state of affairs, that is, change is achieved, it is being strategically directed.
Taking into account the importance and generalization of the use of strategic management as a novel and efficient management theory to develop the effectiveness of companies around the world and addressing the need to create the organizational culture of each organization in correspondence with the final values Of these, it is necessary to keep in mind the shared values as a strategic tool to achieve the process of implementation of the changes to strengthen the strategic attitude and create strategic thinking in the leaders, which will result in the strategic direction working properly in the companies of our countries.
Figure 3. Organizational culture change process
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