I met so many great people on site and online, across different continents, some team, many external – all with stories to tell and insights to share about NeoPollard’s hugely successful first decade and its opportunities for the future.

They made brave choices along the way to an ownable set of statements that define the next decade.

It’s great to see them now focus on different ways to stitch their passion, vision and values into the business. As I always say: it’s got to be for everyone, everywhere and everything.

(And I love, love, LOVE that they have renamed purpose ‘passion’ – so right for them!)

<p>The post NeoPollard vision, PASSION and values update first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

Welcome to REV. It’s the podcast that brings values to life through the people who live by them.

My policy from day one has been only to invite people I really want to chat to. To keep our conversations easy-going. To give my guests the opportunity to open up in a safe space.

The result? I think you’ll enjoy it.

These podcasts are a pleasure to listen to, full of things you won’t have heard before, offer some great life lessons and have loads of personality.

With four more interviews happening in the next month or so – oh, and my goodness, these ones are going to be TERRIFIC – now’s the time to give REV a follow.

Be amongst the first to hear these “… very easy and very enjoyable” chats. (Thanks to Roisin Currie for the plaudit!)

<p>The post Welcome to REV first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

• Employer Branding – Track how your company is perceived as an employer in the market.
• Surveys – the best known  engagement survey is https://www.gallup.com/q12/ You will want to build up a picture over time
• Informal internal ‘vibe’ surveys
• Surveys – culture goes deeper and further than engagement. There are specific culture tracking surveys including https://culture15.com/platform/ and https://www.betterworks.com/
• Insight through ongoing 121s inc 360 surveys / career development (instead of annual reviews)
• An effective culture should promote efficiency and cost-consciousness – worth tracking
• Ongoing self-review – I used a simple 1-3 scale, which manager and report tall through and track
• On departure, exit interview
•  https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/index.htm gives an overview of sentiment
• Generally gaugeable through retention (average cost of replacing someone – £56k)

These are all people things, however – a huge part of it but this is not just an HR area. Other ways to track culture impact are:

• NPS customer satisfaction surveys
• Include values-related questions in customer surveys.
• Customer Retention and Lifetime Value – Measure how  culture correlates with customer loyalty.
• Awards, for example https://businesscultureawards.com/
• Some quality marks will be suitable for your business but analyse their expectations of how you make decisions once you have secured them
• Are company values reflected in your press coverage and industry recognition?
• Peer benchmarking: compare cultural health against industry leaders and competitors.
• Brand value. A good common sense approach here https://sg.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-measure-brand-value
• Companies with a strong culture deliver 3x higher value to shareholders than without. (McKinsey)
• Compare financial metrics like revenue, profit margins, and shareholder returns before and after cultural initiatives or changes. 
• Business Growth Rates – Monitor whether growth correlates with cultural improvements.
• Productivity Metrics – Are teams working more effectively as culture strengthens?
• Consider how other metrics can be attached to values – these can then be benchmarked

• Bring values questions into other surveys 
• Collect and share internal and external stories showing how values support decisions and outcomes.
• Strategic reviews include evaluation of performance and progressions in context of values
• External reviews and stakeholder feedback framed in values

Ultimately you will want to create a culture measurement tool that is designed for your own purposes. There are a number of templates online that you can use as a starting point but it’s essential that this is part of your mainstream strategy, planning and measurement rather than allocated to a separate team.

<p>The post Measure your values: hints and tips to start you off. first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

People

• Make it easy for people to access, understand, remember and act on the values
• Use storytelling to humanise the values and make them memorable – real-life examples create emotional connection and clarity
• People need affiliation, social cohesion, purpose, and meaning – consider how the values provide this (a sense of belonging and being part of something greater than oneself) and share it
• Create values team/ culture champions allowing star people to lead culture creation amongst their teams and develop their own careers through access to top leadership
• Encourage team members to consider ways to bring values to the fore in daily life
• Add behavioural guidelines to each value to contextualise it for team members: specifically related to job/ role descriptions and accessible across the team, ideally
• Recruit people based on values and use values to find ways to understand the fit (rather than just a question) – job ads, interviews, trial days, proper induction, contracts – the works
• Consider culture add (for helpfully diverse growth) rather than just culture fit (can result in homogeneity and impede progress)
• … however, do enquire which of your values speaks to them and why, and see how their perspective can add to what you are already doing
• You may prefer to ask people about their own values and come to your own conclusions about fit
• Encourage people to score themselves on values-driven behaviour in development meetings/reviews
• Similarly give feedback: this also helps to ensure your view of the meaning of the values aligns with theirs and vice versa
• Find ways for people to connect corporate values with their own motivations and concerns
• Build values into performance reviews inc 360s and personal development plans
• Consider a peer recognition system – can be very old school (box in the canteen) and shared at weekly/monthly meetings
• Build values guide of expected behaviours into code of conduct for board members (“companies that have enduring success have core values and purpose that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices adapt endlessly to a changing world” Jim Collins)
• Check yourself and your senior colleagues to ensure you are all the exemplars of values-driven behaviour (the higher up you are, the greater impact a transgression from values will have: if you’re owner/CEO/Chair it will be the narrative formed about you)
• Consider interests of owners, stakeholders, external partners when drawing up activation plans

Publicity

• Draw up a clear Values Set and publish it in a range of places so it is easy for anyone to find
• Launch actions around values, not the values themselves. Values are not a campaign; they need to be woven into the business.
• Connect your values externally to wider cultural needs and changes, positioning them in social and business contexts
• Build values into briefs for marketing teams and external agencies to ensure they are threaded into all communications materials, brand TOV, colours, fonts etc all speak of your culture
• Build values explicitly into external communications eg #knowwhatmatters, PR boilerplate
• Your website is a great opportunity to go into detail about values and culture – you’re not paying* for space – so share the background, meaning and application. *Do consider carbon footprint. 
• Align community/ charitable support projects, and how you deliver them, with your values 
• Internally tie values into announcements, updates, regular catch ups and in presenting updates on company progress to help everyone understand impact of values on function 
• Create private and public recognition of exemplar values-led behaviour from team members eg awards, mentions in updates, social media profiles and simply in emails
• Focus on one value a month and build activities and comms around it: nominate a team from within the organisation to head up each month
• Although values are not JUST about mugs, reception decals and stickers, you do need to do that stuff! Be creative and find ways to build them into the fabric of everyone’s lives
• Remember that culture (like brand) is what people perceive not what you think it should be, so communicating actions is a vital part of the process

Partners

• Anyone you work with who isn’t on PAYE or equivalent
• Build into the supply chain: draw up formal checklists, including values. 
• MOU/ contract / SLA / Ts & Cs sign agreement of respecting values
• Include in briefs for quotes as an expectation and in proposals as a promise
• Include your values  in sales decks and other partner information
• Audit suppliers against values: letter AND spirit of the values. Do their staff have a voice?
• Values-based collaboration (product and service innovation: about 25% of revenues for 65% of business across Europe)
• Encourage co-branding or partnership campaigns based on shared values – this creates consistency and credibility.
• Involve key partners in values reviews, inviting them to reflect on how the partnership is working and where improvements can align more closely with values.
• Identify values conflicts early , have a clear process for resolving situations where partners’ practices conflict with your values.
• Create an external recognition programme to highlight values-driven partners.

Processes

• Select business model to reflect your values: complexity/simplicity, measures of success, focus
• Consider where you are already deploying values (you will be) and formalise it
• Make values and culture a board responsibility – build into agendas/ dashboards
• Apply values test to any recommendations/ sign off inc line managers, team leaders, board
• Audit procedures to include reflection on behavioural alignment with values,+ impact on culture
• Regular values reviews with team members – their own priorities, how the company lives by them, which are important for the future
• Formally tie in rewards and recognition with values delivery
• Find quirky memorable ways to demonstrate values (Amazon  2 pizza rule:  small decisive teams)
• Tie values into daily life: starting meetings, reporting, use of email etc
• Build values into customer service policies, frontline staff can make decisions using  values.
• Ensure that your values guide how you respond to difficult situations: have a plan in place.
• Hold regular values reviews with teams; which values are most relevant and how being lived.
• When priorities conflict, let values shape the resolution.

Performance is the combined impact of the other activities! Companies with a strong culture deliver 3x higher value to shareholders than without. (McKinsey)

<p>The post Integrate your values: hints and tips to start you off. first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

Greggs’ CEO Roisin Currie talks about her own values and those of the business. How did they come to be, how do they come to life – and how do they underpin the phenomenal growth of this British High Street hero?

<p>The post 13: Roisin Currie: values-on-the-go first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

Jingye, which has direct links to the Chinese Communist Party, bought British Steel from the UK government’s insolvency service in 2020. One of their first moves was to cover the steelworks with corporate slogans, motivational mantras and brightly illustrated murals – flowers and all.

This approach is commonplace in Chinese state-owned and influenced enterprises, where business is seen as an extension of government, and values are handed down as instruments of control. In such a system, compliance is king and expression is limited to what aligns with the official line.

But Scunthorpe isn’t Shenzhen. In the UK, our working culture – for all its flaws – is built on a deeper expectation of autonomy, voice and mutual respect. When the slogans went up, the response from the steelworkers was sceptical. Let’s just say that the flowers didn’t bloom.

Because in cultures of trust, values are less about unity of messaging and more about unity of meaning. They are discovered, debated and put to work.

And that’s the real difference. Slogans demand silence. Values invite dialogue. Is your culture built for obedience or belief?

<p>The post Slogans, steelworks and scepticism first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

It was an experiment without agenda, built on a shared curiosity about what happens when you bring together people who live and lead through values.

Around the (virtual) table were people from football, finance, healthcare, marketing, academia and technology. Different sectors united by the fact that each of them had shown a deeper-than-average interest in culture as something they actively use to lead.

The conversation was generous, honest and far-reaching. By the end, it was clear this wasn’t a one-off …

Themes

Several clear themes were threaded through people’s stories, challenges and reflections.

Values aren’t optional. They are the navigational tools that help leaders make decisions when things get tough. This wasn’t about virtue signalling, but about resilience and results.

Values take courage. You cannot lead through values without also being prepared to have hard conversations, make unpopular decisions or shift direction when integrity demands it.

Culture is never finished. Organisations shift. People evolve. Contexts change. Values must be constantly re-embedded.

External perception matters. Culture is not just an internal feeling. It is how your team treats a supplier, how a parent describes their experience of your programme, or why someone chooses to join your organisation over another. Culture is your brand, lived.

Language holds power. Words like ‘kindness’ or ‘freedom’ don’t land the same way for everyone. We heard examples where well-intentioned language sparked concern or discomfort – not because the values weren’t right, but because interpretation hadn’t been fully explored.

Grit

What made the session sing was the subtle differences.

Some leaders spoke about supporting people to leave when values no longer aligned. Others described decisive action, making the call early for the sake of cultural clarity. Each reflected on the emotional cost of delay.

One story stood out: in a previous leadership role, someone shared that their team had adopted a value about enabling success. It was well received – until someone asked, “Does this mean I’m allowed to fail?” The question wasn’t rebellious: it revealed just how important it is to consider the full implication of any value.

Another insight came from the healthcare sector. A value intended to reflect stewardship and care for time and resources was initially met with unease. With further conversation, the value was clarified and embraced, but it served as a powerful reminder. Language isn’t neutral, especially in emotionally complex settings.

Some leaders described building their team’s autonomy and watching them flourish. Others found that the shift towards shared accountability created uncertainty. For some, it felt liberating. For others, destabilising.

These apparent contradictions showed the difference between a values statement and a values system. One is written. The other is lived, challenged, and matured through experience.

Takeaways

1. Clarity is kindness. If someone isn’t aligned, helping them move on can be the most respectful choice for everyone.

2. Values must be embodied. A leader can’t ask others to live the values if they aren’t willing to be held to them too.

3. Real values divide. Good values attract the right people and allow others to self-select out. That’s not failure. That’s function.

4. Culture lives in moments. It’s not in posters or presentations, but in how someone leaves the field, responds to a challenge, or welcomes a colleague on a difficult day.

5. Your culture is your brand. And the most powerful proof isn’t what you say, it’s how people talk about you when you’re not in the room, sign onto a customer waiting list or wait for a role to open up just to be part of it.

What’s Next

Culture Club will meet again. The next session will bring together a fresh mix of leaders, with new insights, stories and dilemmas, and welcome back some faces from this pilot session.

If you’re leading through values – or want to – and would like to be part of a future get together, contact me here.

No pitch. No performance. Just purpose-led people having the conversations that matter.

<p>The post Culture Club: what happens when values-Leaders really talk first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

I would argue it is the time to pick them up.

How can they help?

Firstly, if we face a challenging situation, then sometimes we have to make a decision that is a compromise rather than ideal. If we can make those decisions based on our values, that helps us at least know that we have maintained integrity.

When the world is shifting very fast around you and you find yourself unseated, unsettled – even slightly unhinged – you need something solid at the core from which to take guidance and advice. And if you cannot look up and out for it, then the place to look is in.

Being values-driven does not make you a wimp.

Let me make one thing clear: values do not have to be nice. Values have to be things which allow you to make choices that you can trust. And if the choices that you trust are based on things like money and growth and winning, then have those as values, by all means. If your purpose in the world is to improve your fortunes, to build your castle, then that is fine. That is your purpose.

What is fundamentally important here is that this stuff is true. If it is not true, you cannot look to it for advice. And from where do you take your advice then?

Finally, other people might choose to live apparently without values – although I would suggest that it often just means their values are at odds with yours. All values are not equal, and values are certainly not equally shared.

However, just because other people choose not to live by your values does not mean that you should abandon them. It means you should secure them. You should work with them. You should lean on them for support. You should big them up. You should fight their corner – and they will fight yours.

That is the power of values in a strongman era.

<p>The post Values in a Strongman Era first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

“Once you get over yourself,” says Matt King, headmaster of Great Ballard School, you can have “the joy of appointing people who are so much better than you.”

And it's that view that permeates his approach to colleagues, students and family – of every type. He is a headteacher who has an open door policy, celebrates fun, encourages brave thinking, even finds himself proud of a pupil protest. His values are legacies from his parents with an extra one on top, and are things he treasures, nurtures and consciously refers to in times of uncertainty.

We spoke about the values that have helped him take some quite radical steps in education of children from ages 2-16, balancing the necessary disciplines of the curriculum with some quite unusual approaches to lifelong learning.

<p>The post 12: Matt King: the values of education first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>

Here’s how he introduced the episode:

<p>The post The Being Playful Podcast with Chris Marshall first appeared on Erika Clegg.</p>