“A strong culture driven by a handful of rules (core values) makes leading people much easier, reduces the need for stacks of policies and procedures, gives everyone a foundation from which to make tough decisions, and generally brings simplicity and clarity to many of these “people” systems within a firm.”
My company’s Core Values:
- Attentive Discovery – the products and services we have to sell are focused on our clients’ needs and goals, not our own pre-determined understanding of what they want.
- Loyal Partnerships- Long term and mutually beneficial relationships with our clients are critical to the success of our business model.
- Economic Value – We provide solutions that meet the needs of our clients and become sound financial investments for them.
- Equipping and Empowering Relationships – We look for opportunities to help amplify the strengths of those we server: our clients, staff, management, and community.
Techniques for bringing your core values alive:
- Storytelling – share stories and relate the “moral” of the story to “and that’s why we consider ____ one of our core values.”
- Incorporate into recruitement and orientation – use them to help define the “culture” of the organization.
- Performance appraisals – personal plan for how they affect each team member’s role (let them “fill in the blank”)
- Recognition and reward
- Internal newsletters – why make yourself use “seasons” when you can adopt around your values?
- Themes / rhythms
- Everyday management – relate decisions to their core values. Relate issues to core values. Relate concerns / beefs to core values.
“Young, old, or in between: people need to know what marks they’re expected to be hitting. They want to understand how they can conduct themselves to please you and your customers. They appreciate a reminder when they goof up. And they want ot know the rules aren’t a moving target or prone to selective enforcement. Your core values will do all of that for you, if you take the time to find out what they are and how you can best make use of them.”