I was part of a great discussion recently about the difficulty with incorporating personal values into the business.

This discussion was about incorporating Christian beliefs, but the same logic applies whenever we’re talking about something which doesn’t have a strong link to the purpose of the business itself. After all, we can agree about the need to treat customers and employees fairly – that’s just great business practice. But your personal beliefs often extend beyond that.

In addition, you might feel constrained in your authority to make decisions if you’re not the company owner. Fair enough. I have some thoughts about that at the end.

Your first step is to actually articulate what your personal values are. For example, you might be experiencing discomfort that your company could do more to benefit people in need, but it’s good to get a bit more specific:

  • Who are those “people in need”? Poor? Kids? Elderly? Minorities?
  • What is the “benefit” that you’d be most passionate about giving them? Money? Time? Help? Expertise?

Other examples could include taking a stronger leadership role in community issues, or creating an environment where all employees and their families are valued and supported.

The second step is to explore possible areas of overlap with the business. If we’re talking about how we treat employees, that’s pretty straightforward. Your employees ARE your business.

But dealing with politics or religion is usually a bit more of a stretch. In the political realm, it could have to do with making connections between housing policy (for instance) and attracting the kinds of employees your company needs.

Or maybe it could be working with teenagers to build the kind of skills that you’ll need in employees when they get older.

This kind of exercise can often be best done by group brainstorming, especially if you include people who are connected to the kinds of issues that those populations are experiencing. Yes, that can include non-profits or politicians or the poor.

The third step is to test out some possible goals, actions, and measures. When these three align, you have something powerful and sustainable. After it’s become something you can commit to, you’ll work with managers and employees to embed this into the culture.

Can you do this if you’re not the company owner?

Certainly you can do important parts of it, focused on the areas where you have decision making authority. You should have leadership of a team, so you’re responsible for the local culture within that team.

The big challenge is often how to design something which doesn’t conflict with higher levels of the organization. But if you think about it, that’s not so different to a company owner who has to work within the confines of government regulation and industry structure.

The key is to have the courage to affect the little part of the world that you can change.

Which is leadership.