To ensure that staff buy into company values, leading brand agency The Fearless Executive has collaborated with Getto Ruff Records. They have developed an innovative process that helps companies understand what their values, literally, sound like.

During high engagement sessions using a mix of employees from across the business, different beats, melodies and samples are used which relate to specific values. In doing so, the use of sound creates a deep mnemonic relationship between the values and the individual.

In a recent project for the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), The Fearless Executive and Getto Ruff put several hundred of IDC staff members through the process and the results were exceptional. Analysts, engineers and accountants were stimulated and engaged in identifying what sounds related to their values. The sounds selected have been taken into studio and mastered into a final track creating a remix.

According to Terry Behan, MD of the Fearless Executive, “It quite simply, took the engagement with and understanding of IDC values to a whole different level. The final remix can now be used in elevators, on IDC’s call centre, as ring tones on staff cell phones and will be soon be used as part of an IDC TV commercial. This will ensure that the recall and recognition of the corporation’s values is top of mind with executives, managers, staff and other stakeholders.”

Apart from smell, sound is the most powerful human sense; and when a specific sound is linked to a specific value, the understanding, recall and recognition of those values increases dramatically. Scientifically, the sound creates an embedded motor-neuron pathway to the brain, entrenching that sound and its relationship to an emotion or behaviour.

Behan continues, “The creation of company values is nothing new; nearly every serious organisation, has the ubiquitous plaque over the reception counter recounting its values. That’s where the process usually comes to a grinding halt, and engagement with those values is often non-existent.” 

“Having executive teams, managers and staff that understand, work with and abide by values is not easy, in fact it could even be said that it goes against the grain of the concept of the corporate culture. However, the process of creating these values or in many cases simply refreshing them should be an energizing and enlightening process not just another ‘workshop’ that few attend and fewer remember”.