Posted on Apr 7, 2014

Clear & Concise Values… Southern Style.

As a leading U.S. producer of electricity to over 4 million customers, the subsidiaries of Southern Company span four states – Georgia Power, Alabama Power, Gulf Power, and Mississippi Power. Other brands that are part of Southern Company include Southern Power, Southern Nuclear, Southern Telecom, and SouthernLINC Wireless.

Southern Company is continually ranked among the top utilities in Fortune’s annual World’s Most Admired Electric and Gas Utility rankings.

Maybe it has something to do with their values.

Southern Values

Since 2004, Southern Company has succinctly defined their core values:

Unquestionable Trust
Honesty, respect, fairness, and integrity drive our behavior. We keep our promises and ethical behavior is our standard.
Superior Performance
We are dedicated to superior performance throughout our business. Our priorities are safety first, teamwork, diversity, and continuous improvement through strong leadership.
Total Commitment
We are committed to the success of our employees, customers, and shareholders, and to citizenship and stewardship in all our actions.

Trust. Performance. Commitment. Three values that clearly state Southern’s priorities, and defines what makes the company unique.

I especially applaud Southern for limiting their list of values to just three. Any more and people can’t remember them, limiting their effectiveness.

Hopefully management at Southern has the reward and recognition programs in place to transform these values from promise into action.

One way to do this is to highlight and encourage them everywhere.

Promoting Values Everywhere

Rare to see at any Fortune 500 company (Southern is #171), Southern’s values are surprisingly listed on many different parts of their website.

For example, their values are prominently touted

where they define the company culture
where they outline Why Southern to prospective employees
where they highlight Leadership & Governance
in their Code of Ethics document
in a document for Suppliers that want to work with Southern Company
where Values & Ethics are highlighted under Corporate Responsibility
where they outline their position on Diversity & Inclusion
and even within the job requirements of every job posted online.

Clearly, the leadership of Southern Company is serious about these values. They’ve even found a way to brand them so every employee can easily remember them: Southern Style.

As a marketer, I can appreciate the power of such a concise motto. Whenever an employee, manager, or supplier references the term Southern Style, everyone understands what this means. It’s about living their values.

Healthy Dissension?

Of course, with over 26,000 employees, it’s not hard to find at least one person who challenges the company in living these values. This suggests that everyone at Southern expects these values to be upheld and adhered to in all decisions and actions.

It’s healthy to have employees challenge management on the application of values. Anyone not considering the company values in their decision-making and actions should be reprimanded.

Why?

Because