The values compass as an instrument for steering
The values compass helps you define your goal, your preconditions and your priorities. It serves as the steering instrument for the organisation of the future. Steering on behaviour matters more and more: staff and stakeholders can no longer be held ‘in control’. Instead, the values compass makes your expectations about behaviour and direction visible. The frame it sets shows which way the organisation is heading, makes the course explicit and determines how agile the organisation can be.
The values compass is the successor to the balanced scorecard. Steering an organisation on behaviour is an essential part of the organisation of the future. Experience shows that some staff simply are not motivated by steering on key performance indicators alone. The values compass is an integrated instrument, reaching from behaviour to KPIs and from brand and reputation to the projects that matter.
How customers perceive you counts. What do they make of your brands, and what do they think of your positioning and of the value your product or service creates? No customer, no revenue; no perception, no brand. So know what and who your brand represents, and take that as a given. Set your goal in the knowledge that perception is real and does not shift quickly.
The values compass also helps you make your vision and your ultimate goal concrete. There is no room for long passages here: keep it simple and try to describe your vision and goal in at most four points of at most four words. That is about as much as any of us can hold in mind. The short-term actions — strategy and operations — are brief overall targets for the coming year. Four at most there too; in a focused organisation there is no time for more.
Would you like to know more, or do you need help setting up a values compass? Do get in touch.