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Values – the Necessary Illusions
By Ole Thyssen
Ole Thyssen, Dr. Phil., professor at the Department for Management,
Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School and director of
the CBS Center for Corporate Communication. From 1989 a recipient
of a life-long reward from the Danish state. In the Late 1980s, Ole
Thyssen was involved in the development of the first ethical accounts
in Denmark in the Danish bank, Spar Nord, and he has published several articles and books on values-based management and ethics. His
latest publications include: Iagttagelse og blindhed (2000) (Observation and Blindness), Værdiledelse. Om organisationer og etik (1997,
3rd ed. 2002) (Value Management – On Organisations and Ethics),
Æstetisk ledelse. Om organisationer og brugskunst (2003) (Aesthetic
Management – on Organisations and Applied Art).
When the idea of using values in organisations was introduced in
Denmark in the late 1980s, the aim was normative and idealistic.
Values were something which an organisation not only could but
ought to employ in order to become better in all meanings of the
term – better at honouring its purposes, better at motivating employees, customers and users, and better at creating profits. Values were
viewed as a tool which could be used to continuously encourage the
organisation to minimise the difference between the demands of the
values and the organisational reality.
Ideally, the difference ought to completely collapse in order to
fulfil the value. However, after the excitement came disillusion.
Most often, values did not provide the desired harmony, irrespective
of whether they were declared wrong or the effort insufficient. Even
organisations which took great pain to employ values had to realise
that very often the distance between value and reality was so vast
that the process became sidetracked: ‘in reality’, the values meant
very little and functioned merely as make-up covering up a dry and
knotty surface. The enthusiasm about the theoretical potential of
values was mirrored by the cynicism of their practical deliveries.
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At the same time, the demand for values, that is, ‘the demand for
demands’, became a normal part of social dynamics. Modern society
is characterised by continuous growth in immaterial values such as
health, social responsibility, equality between sexes and environmental issues (Thyssen, 2002). Although constructions such as ‘the political consumer’ or ‘the responsible employee’ are fictions, they were
often effective fictions which put pressure on an organisation and
could trigger off devastating media criticism. Once the demand for
values has been articulated, there is no turning back. A cultural shift
has happened which cannot be reversed. Subsequently, an organisation is unable to hide and go about business as usual. When observed
from the values perspective, its normal conduct might transform
from being perceived as acceptable to criticisable and out of touch.
Faced with the gap between value and reality, an organisation can
react in a number of different ways:
1. It can maintain an idealistic notion of the possibility of shared
values and claim that continuous efforts and an unbroken dialogue will eventually lead to a consensus of shared values.
2. It can accept the fact that values will always contain a play of conflict and consensus. Values do not have a strict argumentative
logic and will never convince everybody. Whether values lead to
agreement or disagreement is an empirical question because it
requires rhetoric. Values are about convincing emotionally, not
objectively. In an organisation there will always be someone who
is deeply involved with its values, someone who is half-hearted,
while still others prefer to simply concentrate on their job
(Kjærulff & Matthiesen, 2003).
In this perspective, an organisation’s decision to integrate values is not a question of what is true or false but of practical wisdom. Likewise, the question of whether it should invite dialogue
about its values or merely demonstrate them by example of
power is another practical question. Faced with the embarrassment which often arises when a discussion of values does not
lead to clarification but to more confusion, it can be an authoritative gain to let management lead the way and be the moral experts which the employees should imitate – with sanctions
against those who do not get the message.1
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3. Finally, the organisation might rise above the discussion of
whether values in practice lead to conflict or consensus and seek
a basis for its values based on the claim that without basis the
values will be blowing in the wind and become a question of convenience. One might take the step into the foggy sphere of religion and find there the necessity which can integrate the random
events of everyday life so that one experiences the nature of the
values and senses that their commitment derives from their position as supporting pillars in a meaningful cosmos. In this way an
organisation might seek to harness the strong motivational force
of religion to its carriage.
The fact that values can be handled in different ways is a sign that
traditional shared values in society have disappeared. When central
values become disintegrated in the acid bath of globalisation and individualisation, an organisation can try to create its own set of shared
values – irrespective of whether the values are perceived as achievements per se or as useful tools for the realisation of other goals such
as motivation and, ultimately, profit.
The Necessary Hypocrisy
An organisation always embraces a large number of values which
provide premises for its decisions. A value that does not affect a decision is no value – although it can hold a different value as ornamentation. Money is an important value to any organisation, and so are
knowledge, power, technical skills and legal legitimacy. The organisation is unable to ignore any of these values.
The weave of values becomes exceedingly complex when demands
arise for values over and above these classical values, articulated as
so-called ‘soft values’. Several claims are made which are not easily
reconciled. If the organisation stakes on the value of “environmental
considerations”, this might interfere with the value of “profit”. If it
decides not to compromise on its demands for quality, it might stress
employees to the extent that the value of “well-being” is violated.
And how high can the price of social responsibility get before it becomes irresponsible of the organisation to be responsible to society?
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The ideal assertion is that soft values make it easier to reach decisions because complicated cost-benefit calculations are replaced by
the simple distinction that soft values create between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. In practice, the picture is different:
soft values cannot disregard classical values, so in the end more
premises are introduced, more calculations needed, which makes it
more difficult to make decisions. The different values cannot all be
observed simultaneously; they are incomparable and pull in conflicting directions.
How to cope with a weave of values this motley? When conflicting demands are directed at an organisation, that is, when it is met
with demands that must be met but cannot be met, it is forced into
hypocrisy (Brunsson, 2003). This means that its words, decisions and
actions contradict each other. The organisational self-description is
filled with beautiful words to conceal the fact that its decisions are
less beautiful, or it makes beautiful decisions among cheers and jeers
to compensate for the fact that they are not followed up by action.
Hypocrisy is a strange phenomenon. On the one hand, the organisation cannot avoid hypocrisy because it has to present an idealised
picture of itself, an image that can motivate internally as well as externally2. It cannot afford to squander truth and disclose all the carelessness, incompetence, nasty intrigues and devious compromises
which also make up its daily life. The organisation cannot simply orient itself according to what is true and false since it has a purpose to
carry out. It needs not only to relate to reality but also to create a
new reality. And in order to do so, it has to motivate, which takes
place through values. It needs not only to invoke a tempting image
of its present state, but also to recount its heroic past and brilliant future.
On the other hand, the organisation cannot speak of its hypocrisy since to speak of one’s hypocrisy is the same as not being hypocritical. It is even unable to openly discuss the discrepancy between
its image and daily life since that would reveal its image as a mere
image and hence break the spell. When struggling to gain credibility, an organisation cannot reveal the means it employs because that
would weaken its credibility. Although it has to speak of itself, it also
has to keep silent. In short, it has to address truth in a strategic manner and master the art of rhetoric.
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Necessary Illusions and Strategic Truths
Not only organisations but also people employ a battery of different descriptions which often contradict and interrupt each other.
One gives different presentations at home and abroad and employs
different words on internal or external playfields. An image, as
everybody will know, is an illusion. It is a beautiful lie. However,
since the lie is a necessity, we regard it as more than just a lie. The
difference between stage and backstage is so ordinary that it has almost been granted its own genre, that is, the handling of the necessary illusions.
The guiding difference for this particular genre is not the difference between true and false. Everybody knows that an image does
not represent the truth. The important question is whether it creates
motivation or cynicism. Therefore, it must be treated judiciously,
which requires rhetorical efforts. Indeed, both organisations and
people are required to put on a mask in order not to inconvenience
others with the whole truth, which is time-demanding, confusing
and irrelevant (Sennett, 1976) – at least as long as the organisation
has nothing important to hide.
An organisation is unable to describe itself as incompetent, sloppy and de-motivating. Even against better judgement it has to pretend to be competent, efficient and involved. It must cram its self-description with plus-words, that is, with values. The important question, then, is when these values can be said to motivate so that they
become part of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and when they are denounced as empty illusions.
The management is responsible for the organisation’s selfdescription. Nerds are responsible for subject matter alone, whereas
managers are responsible for a whole. Even though they cannot control everything en detail, they are still judged on their ability to
present and realise an ideal description of their organisation. When
an organisation consists of communication, it is invisible, which
means that its identity emerges through description, that is in a text
(Luhmann, 2000). Although an organisation can be described in
many different ways, from pompous presentations in glittery brochures to secret gossip in dark corners, not all descriptions hold the
same power, and only managers hold responsibility for the rhetoric
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effort to invoke unity, play the music of the future and transform
conflicts into challenges.
This calls for a balancing of many different values, which is possible – although not in an objective manner. When a manager has to
consider many different values, his efforts become “oddly political”
(Mintzberg, 1983:xxiii). He has an agenda which is not objective but
which must motivate in order for the manager to exercise model
power. That requires rhetoric. And rhetoric operates in areas where
there is no definite knowledge but where decisions still have to be
made (Aristoteles, 1994).
The way in which an organisation balances different values is a
paradoxical secret – a secret which cannot be kept secret. The balancing shows in its decisions but is not discussed in public. If that happened, anyone would be able to see that an organisation is not totally committed to its values but that it discusses them and makes compromises based on them. Vis-à-vis the public, a manager must keep
a straight face and must put on different masks depending on the audience he is addressing.
When values are employed normatively, implying a should, an
instant discrepancy occurs between value and reality. This discrepancy can be used to express criticism so that a declaration by the
organisation about its efforts to comply with certain values might
tempt a movement in the opposite direction: to disclose its lack of
compliance with the values. Through its values, the organisation
signals that certain expectations can be directed at it. It increases the
expectational pressure and, hence, lays bare its throat.
The result, therefore, is often that the organisation is subjected to
criticism for not meeting the expectations which it has helped create,
whereas other organisations, which are merely going about business
as usual, do not evoke any particular expectations and hence avoid
criticism (Vallentin, 2002). They do not try to distinguish themselves
and are able to hide in peace. It is a paradox that an organisation’s
reputation might suffer from its attempts to behave decently. Likewise, values might create frustration among employees to the effect
that the organisation is forced to distinguish between good and bad
frustration among employees depending on its ability to motivate or
de-motivate with respect to the value work.
Values can be employed self-critically, that is, in an attempt to
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improve the organisation. However, they can also be used to criticise,
whether the criticism concerns the values’ lack of practical significance, their function as mere ornamentation, the fact that they mean
very little in themselves but merely work as tools to raise profits or
increase the pressure on employees, or the fact that they have
emerged not through a dialogue about shared values but as a result
of a top-down decision by management.
The idealistic description of the potential of values, which is
founded on best-case arguments, is put into perspective by the realistic description of how little the values mean in practice and how
immense the discrepancy is between values and everyday life. What
should be done about this discrepancy?
Values: Visibility and Consequence
A value is a demand to a solution. It is a distinction between what is
acceptable and what is not acceptable. If an organisation commits to
a value, it has to become a part of the organisational decision programme. Hence, we can test values in two different ways.
First of all: Are the organisational values visible? Can they be
and are they used in everyday life? Values-based management is
measured on the visibility of its values in everyday life and on the
question of whether the values are “differences which make a difference” (Bateson, 1984). If not, they might be characterised as values,
only not the values of the organisation – but maybe, as we have
seen, as its showpieces. Many organisations appeal to base values
such as quality and dynamics3, which are difficult to reject but also
difficult to relate to daily practice.
Secondly: Are they enforced? Taking one’s values seriously
means to account for them and intervene if they are not observed.
This requires consistency. If the values do not make a difference in
day-to-day practice, it is simple to maintain them. They merely need
to be mentioned in pamphlets, on ceremonious occasions and to the
press. But lack of action exposes values as illusions. That is not necessarily a bad thing. What does matter, however, is whether the illusions bring on fervency and activity or whether they cause frigidity
and ridicule.
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In practice, it seems that these are the two rocks on which valuebased management usually strands. The organisation – and more
specifically: the management – make insufficient efforts to define
the values and clarify their everyday implications. And they do not
have the energy to react when the values are violated – because if
values are linked up with punishment and sanctions, it dissolves the
motivational gain that they were intended to create.
Measuring Values
Taking values seriously means to account for them. But what does it
mean to keep accounts? In small organisations, this can be done in an
informal manner since everybody is able to keep track of what everybody else is doing. But in large organisations there is no comprehensive view, neither of the employees nor of clients and customers.
Values are expectations directed at an organisation, that is, at its
employees – not its customers and clients. How can different parties
know whether these expectations have been met when they never
meet face to face? A common answer is measuring, whether in the
shape of customer satisfaction surveys, ethical accounts, knowledge
reports, green reports or social reports.
These forms of reporting share the effort to turn the quality of
values into a measurable quantity. Rather than focusing on whether
a specific value has been observed, they might for example inquire
about the number of people experiencing that the value has been observed.
Many people scoff at these reports and view them as an inherent
part of a modern evaluation frenzy where everything and everybody
has to be measured and weighed. One argument is that values cannot be measured, and accordingly, what are measured can only be
surrogates – as when you measure quality of life on the basis of the
number of bathrooms. Another argument is that there will always
be a certain amount of uncertainty connected to the measuring because people might not relate the same meaning to the same words.
However, the question is not whether such measuring is perfect
– which it is not. Like so many other things, from formal democracy
to the face that one meets in the mirror every morning, the import-
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ant issue is not perfection but alternatives. If there are no better
ways of creating a comprehensive view of the true state of the
values, then one has to measure them, knowing that the results of
these measurements can only be rough estimates and will not apply
to the fourth decimal place. Measuring might provide the organisation with an indication as to whether it has met its part of the
contract inherent in any value – whether the value’s demand for a
solution has been met. Thus, it is able to become not only useful but
an indispensable part of the value work.
Values and Rules
The difference instituted by values in everyday life is often perceived
as the need for a kind of catalogue of how to comply with a value –
how to answer the telephone, how to treat customers and clients, or
which authority to grant employees in specific situations.
In this way values degenerate into rules. A rule is a prescription,
a “pre-written script”, which specifies how to act, preferably in all
details. This obliterates the characteristics of values as opposed to
rules, that is, the fact that they are more general and therefore open
to interpretation.
If we extend the perspective outside the organisation, we may
perceive value-based management as a reaction to the modern
demand for flexibility and learning (Thyssen, 2002). When what
repeats itself is the fact that things do not repeat themselves, extra
demands are put on the shoulders of the employees. They cannot
mechanically repeat the activities and routines of yesterday but
must consider how to act today. That requires reflection and discussion. And in this context, values are very useful. When they are
indefinite, it takes particular efforts to determine what is needed to
live up to the demands of the value. It gives employees an interpretive space and transforms them from robots to human beings.
This gives organisational values a useful relationship to the difference between constancy and variation. Values can be used to
create constancy, that is, tradition in an organisation, so that the
same values form a line between the past and the present. An organisation can use values to claim that it stands strong and does not buy
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into any new trend. For that, the values have to be general – almost
banal. However, it also means that the organisation must make noticeable efforts to continuously clarify and explain the practical
meaning of the value. This is a test of whether the organisation is
serious in dealing with its values.
The important question is not whether values are realised. There
will always be a difference between value and reality, and precisely
this difference has to be nursed and kept open as an important resource in order to allow for a continued effort. One could say that
ideals should not be realised but remain unattainable so that the effort to improve becomes endless. An organisation is actually able to
live with an exceptionally big discrepancy between its values and its
everyday life as long as it contributes this effort.
A value, therefore, is not just a constant but allows for variation.
The same value can be interpreted differently at different points in
time and in different contexts. The interpretation of “respect for the
customer” can change radically over time whereas the value remains
the same. And if an organisation constitutes a framework for many
different activities it might tie them together through values that
are sufficiently flexible to include them all but which can be interpreted differently depending on the nature of the activity. The value
of “precision” is defined differently depending on whether an eye
doctor or a ditcher is working to comply with it.
This means that even banal or obvious values might become
interesting – not in and by themselves but by virtue of the continued effort which the organisation takes on in their name. A.P.
Møller’s ”constant care” is an indefinite value which becomes relevant through interpretation and is kept sharp in practice.
The balance between constancy and variation also appears in a
different way. When an organisation defines more values, it makes
itself more flexible and is able to better adapt its conduct to the demands of the situation. Obviously, what is defined as the “demands
of the situation” requires a rhetoric effort. But values allow the organisation to indicate a range of recognised themes which might
form the basis of its rhetoric so that it does not have to start from
Adam and Eve every time.
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Conclusion: Values as Focus Areas
With this, the different streams of the present article come together:
the necessary hypocrisy, the necessary illusions and the demand for
values all point to the fact that values do not merely represent a list
of the demands which should be met – the sooner the better – so that
the organisation can finally reach perfection. There exists no “once
and for all” in modern societies. Rather, values can be perceived as
focus areas in which an organisation commits itself to a particular
focus and hence commits itself to staying open for criticism, discussion and change.
With a value, an organisation provides a license to criticism
(Knudsen, 2003). The result cannot and should not be definitively
decided on. The organisation opens itself to continued dialogue with
those stakeholders who are sufficiently concerned about its products
and procedures to criticise and protest. If no one protests, everything
is fine. But in modern societies criticism is perceived as a positive
thing so the risk of silence is minimal. Someone is bound to be discontent. Rather, the risk is that if an organisation does not remain
sensitive to criticism, it creates a relationship of conflict to the partners on which its life depends – its customers and clients, it employees and the public.
A value statement is not a positive list of mechanical demands
which the organisation – its managers and employees – has to live
up to in order to avoid criticism. Also, it is more than a beautiful lie
which the organisation uses as ornamentation and as a way to produce illusions. Rather, it is a list of themes and areas in which the organisation commits itself to enter into a continuous dialogue with its
partners in order to become increasingly better at meeting its goals,
which can only be met if other partners meet their goals (Ackoff,
1982).
Obviously, an organisation has to protect itself and distinguish
between criticism and quarrelsomeness. It cannot take every complaint seriously but has to test the weight of each objection. But the
difference between criticism and quarrelsomeness is a rhetorical difference. It does not disclose what is objectively legitimate, only what
the organisation decides to take seriously and what it decides to re-
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ject. Thus, the difference between criticism and quarrelsomeness is
one of the areas where the organisation has to continuously consider how to react. That, too, is about values.
References
Ackoff, Russell (1982): Creating the Corporate Future, New York: John
Wiley
Aristoteles (1994): Rhetoric, The Complete Works of Aristoteles, ed. by
Jonathan Barnes, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.
Bateson, Gregory (1979): Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unit, Hampton
Press, N.J.
Brunsson, Nils (2003): The Organization of Hypocrisy. Talk, Decisions and
Actions in Organizations, 2. udg., København: Copenhagen Business
School Press
Mette Morsing (2001):”Værdier i danske virksomheder – skitse af et
fænomen med mange ansigter”, Center for Corporate Communication
Working Paper 8, CBS, København
Kjærulff, Katrine og Linda Matthiesen (2003): Indførelsen af værdibaseret
ledelse – tilføjelse af et medarbejderperspektiv, IKL, CBS
Knudsen, Hanne (2003): ”Licens til kritik. Værdier i Københavns Kommune”, Ledersupporten nr. 11, juni 2003, www.ledersupporten.dk
Luhmann, Niklas (2000): Organisation und Entscheidung, Opladen:
Westdt. Verlag
Machiavelli (1998): The Prince, Penquin, London
Mintzberg, Henry (1983): Power in and around Organizations, Englewood
Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall
Petersen, Verner C. (2002): Beyond Rules in Society and Business, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
Sennett, Richard (1976): The Fall of Public Man, New York: Penquin
Thyssen, Ole (2002): Værdiledelse. Om organisationer og etik, 3. rev. udg.,
København: Gyldendal
Thyssen, Ole (2003): “Organisationens usynlighed”, Distinktion, Distinktion, no.7, pp.65-74
Vallentin, Steen (2002): Pensionsinvesteringer, etik og offentlighed – en
systemteoretisk analyse af offentlig meningsdannelse, København:
Samfundslitteratur
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Notes
1
2
3
This is the perspective of the so-called ‘Århus School’ presented in Petersen,
2002.
Cf. Machiavelli’s claim that a prince, that is a leader, must necessarily be able to
present illusions and be “a great liar and deceiver” in order to prevent his actions from demotivating the public (Machiavelli, 1998, p. 82).
A list of the twenty most used values in Danish organisations can be found in
(Morsing, 2001).