Grid listing, value instead of reference

Hello
i have a customer object which has customertype in it
when i list this object in grid , name,surname etc they are listed normal but customertype listed by its reference as its normal,

when i want to list customertype.value
generating column with addcolumn( … , customertype.value )
and hiding reference column with grid.getcolumn(type).sethidden(true)

The question is that,
is this the right way to achieve this,
or is there any another simple , more appropriate solution for this
Thanks for your replies.