There are two kinds of values that both groups and individuals can recognize. Core values are the ones that come naturally to you, without them you wouldn’t be yourself. Wish values are the ones you aspire to have.
There’s nothing that inspires yawning more than an employee handbook. It is very top-down, bureaucratic and bizarrely still printed, usually out of date. Of course, these do come full of interesting insights like who does what and where to find information and locations within the company. But mostly it remains at the bottom of our desk drawers unread.
Some employee handbooks however, go above and beyond to engage and welcome team members like design powerhouse’s Little Book of IDEO. This is because they don’t really have a boring old employee handbook, but rather a Culture Book. It colorfully weaves together the company’s seven core values, including optimism and collaboration.
Unsurprisingly, Zappos is another company that touts an exciting innovation on that boring old handbook. The Zappos Culture Book, which is made up of unedited employee submissions about what the company culture means to them.
