Values and brand go hand in hand.
Over the past year, a new set of values has been developed for the entire Proton Group. The work includes the entire corporate group and means that all operations and companies have been highly involved in developing the new values and behaviours that will carry the group forward.
“The background to a new set of values is that Proton has set very ambitious growth targets to meet future needs and challenges in our rapidly changing world. Strategic and operational work will fail if we do not have the right attitude and behaviour within the organisation. By living the values and letting them permeate our operations, I am convinced that we will get closer to the vision – which includes achieving the ambitious targets we have set. Through this, we will double our turnover over the next ten years and significantly increase profitability,” says David Gustafsson, CEO of Proton Group.
From current to new situation
Around 50 leaders gathered for a few days in September last year. Theoretical and practical exercises in groups and individually were interspersed with discussions about the current situation – with the common denominator of finding the way forward for a new situation. What we came up with was documented and compiled – to finally result in four concrete value words, where each of the words is linked to some specific behaviours.
Back to the core
Our leaders identified a number of behaviours that we need in our operations to move towards our goal. It’s about our winning attitude, our will to perform and to be first on the ball. It’s about job satisfaction, how we care for each other and energise each other. It’s about challenging our courage, daring to innovate, seeing no limitations and constantly wanting to evolve.
And it’s about how we communicate, co-operate and make each other better, how we win together. We summarise these behaviours in four words: Proactive, Team Spirit, Challenge, Collaboration. They form the word PLUS – which is the essence of where we come from. A positively charged particle, a proton, that wants to make a positive difference.
– What got us here won’t get us where we want to go, so we have adopted this new set of values and behaviours that we believe are the recipe to get us to the vision and goals we have set. This is a journey that all 440 Proton employees need to help with, and everyone is therefore highly involved in the work. All leaders in the Group were involved in setting the values and behaviours that would help us on this journey. And right now, work is underway with several exercises where all employees are involved and contribute,” says Mari Lundqvist, HR Manager at Proton Group.
What a force it is when you bring together so many competent and committed leaders. I am very hopeful about what we can achieve together through this work. Imagine several hundred employees who will each contribute to Proton’s growth journey. That’s awesome!
Practise, practise, practise
Putting the new values on boards is not enough. Once the new values were agreed, the next step was to come together again – this time in smaller groups – to practice working with our new behaviours. All to provide all leaders with the tools to put the exercises into play in their respective organisations and functions. At each session, we focused on two words and carried out exercises around them. When the exercises were carried out in the teams at home, a focus area was set linked to each word on which the exercise was based.
From project to process
It was a bunch of inspiring, energetic, and certainly somewhat tired, Proton leaders who went back to their organisations to set the game of exercises in motion.
– What a force it is when you gather so many competent and committed leaders. I am very hopeful about what we can achieve together through this work. Imagine several hundred employees, each of whom will contribute to Proton’s growth journey. That’s awesome! It is also important
to realise that this work is not a project that we implement now and then can check off, it is an ongoing process that we should live in every day,” points out Mari Lundqvist, HR Manager at Proton Group.
By living the values and letting them permeate our activities, I am convinced that we will get closer to the vision.
David Gustafsson
CEO, Proton Group