Business Organizational Values of the Future

The Business View – May 2018 / From the Publisher

During a recent Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) board meeting, I heard an interesting presentation on “old power values” versus “new power values” in American businesses.

In a nutshell, old power speaks to the influence that large companies in the past held within capitalism, in our local and national governments, and their stronghold on our nation’s workforce.

As you might guess, new power businesses are primarily new, entrepreneurial companies, which are growing exponentially and attracting thousands of talented workers in a very tight job market worldwide.

If you’re like I was, you’re wondering what all this really means. To understand old power values, think of established, mainline companies like Ford, GM, The New York Times and, believe it or not, Walmart and Dell. On the other hand, companies holding new power values are those like Google, Amazon and Zappos.

Adjectives to describe old values include institutionalism, exclusivity, authority, confidentiality, specialization – and, especially, long-term affiliation and loyalty. New power values include descriptions like informal, self-organization, crowd wisdom (crowd funding), sharing, radical transparency, “maker culture” – and, perhaps most disconcertingly, short term and conditional affiliation.

After learning about old and new power values, most of us on the ACCE board felt the majority of U.S. companies are a hybrid.

Clearly, there are pros and cons to both sets of values. The good news is many American companies are making a gradual shift and incorporating more and more new power values into their organizational culture. It’s not only a wise thing to do, it’s a necessary strategy to continue to attract younger talent who seemingly gravitate to businesses with new power values.

There are lessons to be learned by examining our companies to see where our cultures fit along the two value spectrums.

Evolving our organizational culture to be welcoming to a multigenerational and diverse workforce will keep our companies strong and ready for the future.

Click here to read The Business View – May 2018

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