Core Values
Core Values Strengthen Your Core Values and stand out from the
competition
Intros
Christian DawsonOpen-i Advisors Co-founderTaylor TricaricoOpen-i
Advisors ConsultantHilary van der MeulenOpen-i Advisors
Co-founder
A companys values what it stands for, what its people believe
in, are crucial to its competitive success. - Robert Haas
Christian
OVERVIEW: There is a lot of talk and buzz right now about
culture and values. From large corporations to small
brick-and-mortar businesses, leaders have realized the value of
stating why they do what they do and making business decisions
around these ideals. What we will do in this workshop is give you a
step by step guide on HOW to develop, maintain and promote core
values that are true to your organization and can be used as a
powerful tool for differentiation from the likes of AWS.
Quote: (Chairman/CEO Levi Strauss)
What are Core ValuesValues match the vision and mission of the
companyCore values represent your team identity: the principles,
beliefs, and philosophy that drive your business Values release and
direct energy, motivating people. Values are the general principles
for the communication and co-operation within the company Core
values are the qualitative goals the company strives for, to
achieve in all its activitiesCore values show employees how to
behaveIn the minds of your customers or partners, core values are
why they choose you
Vision is what you aspire to be, Mission is how you will do it,
Values are the behaviors you will follow while you are reaching for
your mission.
However, if you if you havent taken the time to intentionally
establish a specific set of standards, you run the risk of others
shaping your businesss public perception.
Why Core Values?
Values are at the center of how you:
Hire staffEvaluate and promote staffSelect partnersSell
productsCare for customersExist in your communityDifferentiate
yourself from your competitors
Core Values are at the cornerstone of all business
decisions.
There is nothing more important in developing and maintaining
powerful businesses than establishing a winning culture base on
published core values. People want to work for companies that are
governed by established principles and management that supports
them. Consumers want to buy from companies that exists for reason
they undersatnd and can relate to.
Core values are where powerful businesses begin, and smart
management will diligently work to enhance their effectiveness
Values Should.reflect peoples motivation for doing the companys
workbe specific and grounded in realityillustrate an alignment
between all staff, top to bottombe constructed with words and
phrasing that the leadership and staff of your organization would
actually use, giving a glimpse into your companys personality
Values Should NOTchange with the organizations goals, leadership
or the market. Core values must be able to stand the test of time
be marketing slogans. Core values written to appeal to an audience
for marketing or PR purposes, are disingenuous and will harm, not
helpbe created in a vacuum. This is not a task for leadership, or
the HR team, it is a responsibility of the entire organization to
identify and promote core valuesbe visionary. Core values do not
articulate who you want to be, they state who you ARE
Example A: Starbucks
Provide a great work environment and treat each other with
respect and dignityEmbrace diversity as an essential component in
the way we do businessApply the highest standards of excellence to
the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffeeDevelop
enthusiastically satisfied customers all the timeContribute
positively to our communities and our environmentRecognize that
profitability is essential to our future success
I suggest giving examples of a well known but opposite
non-hosting industry companies to help people wrap their heads
around the concept in general terms. Then ask What do these two
sets of Core Values have in common?
Q: What jumps out at you about these values?A: We can tell what
business they are inA: There is a sense of balance employees,
customers, community, profitsA: They are fairly concise no
paragraph explanations needed.
Example B: The Container Store
One Great Person = Three Good People. One great person is equal
to three good people in terms of business productivityCommunication
IS Leadership. Every day we practice consistent, reliable,
predictable, effective, thoughtful, compassionate, and yes, even
courteous communicationFill the other guys basket to the brim.
Making money then becomes an easy propositionThe best selection,
service and priceIntuition does not come to an unprepared mind. You
need to train it before it happens.Man in the Desert Selling. This
is our selling philosophy and we use it to astonish our customers
by anticipating their needs, and exceeding their expectationsAir of
Excitement. Three steps in the door, you know if a place has it.
Its what makes employees and customers alike want to be in our
stores
These guys sell plastic containers. Plastic Containers!? But
they do it with a set of guiding core values UNIQUE to them.
Q: What jumps out at you about these values?A: Sense of their
personality.A: Very unique. Not sure any other company would
reference a man in the desert.A: You can feel the energy these
values generate.
What do these values have in common? Where do they differ?
Generic values Generic resultsIntegrity. Employees will
demonstrate honesty and sound ethical behavior in all business
transactionsMutual Respect. Employees will consistently treat
individuals with respect and dignityTeamwork. Employees work
together as a teamCommunication. Employees will share information
effectively with each otherInnovation. Employees will seek
innovative and creative approaches to problem-solvingQuality.
Employees will make excellence and quality a part of day-to-day
work processesFairness. employees will commit to dealing fairly
with customers, suppliers, partners, and each other
Here is an anonymous example of less than stellar values.
Q:These are all good, honorable values, right? So, what is
wrong?
A: There are no differentiators here.A: They pretty much covered
everything without zeroing in on what they stand for the most. A:
Over-simplified and Generic. We get no sense of the companys
personality.A: Buzz words aimed at customers, not employeesA: Too
vague
Core values are found, not created. Its not who you want to be,
its who you are. - Adi Kunalic
TAYLOR
The language we use when we talk about Core Values is to develop
core vales, create them, build them. Im even guilty of this
terminology, when really what we are doing is finding, uncovering,
bringing to light values that already exist in an organization's
people.
They already exist, we just have to uncover them.
I once helped a 15 year-old hosting company find their values
after 15 years of working together, in the same business, do you
think it was hard to find them? Nope. It was as easy as asking the
right questions and really listening to the responses. I am going
to show you how I did it and how you can do it for your
organization -- whether you have been around and working with the
same people for 20 years or two months.
(Do we want to share the Core Values survey for free to
attendees? In exchange for their email address of course.)
Finding Core Values
At Open-i Advisors we have a Core Values Discovery engagement
that takes Companies through a proven process of uncovering Core
Values. It Includes:Surveying every employee on what values are
important to themDrafting Core Value statements based on those
valuesPutting the Core Value Statements to a vote by the entire
staff Creating a plan for announcing, celebrating and leveraging
corporate core values
Finding Core ValuesThe goal is to look for Overlap in what
individuals value and discover what matters most to you as a
collective.
When we talk to employees and uncover values, Its about looking
for overlap in what is important to your employees as individuals
and what drives them as employees.
Once we uncover the overlap leading a company through crafting
their values statements becomes easy.
Provide a great work environment and treat each other with
respect and dignityEmbrace diversity as an essential component in
the way we do businessApply the highest standards of excellence to
the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffeeDevelop
enthusiastically satisfied customers all the timeContribute
positively to our communities and our environmentRecognize that
profitability is essential to our future successIf we look at the
Starbucks Example again, we can see what values surfaced for
them
Lets look back at the Starbuck core values for an example of how
to turn concepts into Values If you reverse engineer these
statements you can see the core concepts they started with.
Treat each other with RESPECT AND DIGNITY
Embrace DIVERSITY
Apply the HIGHEST STANDARDS of EXCELLENCE
Develop ENTHUSIASTICALLY SATISFIED CUSTOMERS
Contribute to our COMMUNITIES and OUR ENVIRONMENT
Recognize that PROFITABILITY is essential
Now What?Write them down.
Like, EVERYWHERE!!!
TaylorOnce you have your values, spend a little time and money
to create ways to display them. Posters, plaques, t-shirts, mugs.
Create visible reminders everywhere.
Bringing Core Values to Life
Events, Rewards and Awards
Acknowledging staff that personify the core values with Core
value rewardsGive a monthly customer support award already?
Re-brand it around a specific core value that you appreciate in
your support team.
Hold events.If your value is creativity, have a chili cook-off
and see who can make the most creative, but still edible chili.
Create small opportunities to demonstrate a value.If you have a
core value about embracing challenge, buy a few brain teaser
puzzles, put them in the break room and give a gift card to the
person(s) that accept the challenge and figures them out.
Ive even gone so far as to create a Core Values Roadmap that was
followed just like a product development roadmap and held
management to Core Value milestones and events.
At the very least, plan ahead and put these events and awards on
a calendar so you have one at regular intervals.
Bringing Core Values to Life
Look at every single Human Resources function through the lens
of your core values: Interview questions: Create at least one for
every core value.Onboarding and training: How quickly can you
expose employees to your core values?Employee Handbook: Add the
Core Values, STAT! Employee review paperwork: Create categories on
your paperwork for each value. Evaluate employees against
them.Policies and procedures: Are your policies and procedures in
alignment with your values? If not, change them!
Interview questions: Do you have at least one for every core
value?After hiring dozens and dozens of staff I can confidently say
that an individual who best fits your team culture is more
important than the technical expertise that they may bring. Your
interview process MUST include a core value alignment component.
Ive done this both in the main interview itself alongside questions
about skills and work history and as a separate interview conducted
by a small committee of peers.
Being able to rely on your Core Values is ESPECIALLY helpful in
times of accelerated growth. You can move quickly and confidently
as you add staff because you are measuring them against an
organization-wide standard.
Onboarding and training: How quickly are new employees exposed
to your core values?
Employee Handbook: Add the Core Values, STAT!
Employee review paperwork: Create categories on your paperwork
for each value. Evaluate employees against them.Reviews become more
rounded and easier with core values. We all know what it feels like
to have an employee who doesnt quite align with the rest of the Co.
Now there is a way to evaluate and record where and how a mismatch
occurs and take steps to improve behavior by setting your
expectations around core values. The managers I have worked with
LOVE this approach. As mostly tech-heads themselves, they
appreciate having something more concrete to base the behavioral
part of their employee analysis on.
Policies and procedures: Are your policies and procedures in
alignment with your values? If not, change them!Policies and
procedures that govern behaviors are 100 times easier to create
when you have core values to lean on. (I once worked for a company
where my task was to build new policies for a rapidly growing
technical and customer support teams. My first crack at it was met
with resistance it was not until I backed up 5 steps, took the
entire company through a Core Values exercise similar to the one
outlined here and applied those shared values to the policies and
procedures, that I saw success)
Its not hard to make a decision once you know what your values
are. - Roy E. Disney
Hilary
To move beyond just stating values to actually living them,
teams have to focus on living values ineverything they do. That
means even when decisions are tough.
Values need to move beyond generic statements to guide behaviors
andinfluence strategic decisions. With strongvalues, strategies
become guided by a unifiedidentity
How? Were going to show you.
Values in Action
Project/Product Prioritization:Deciding what to do when, with
limited resources, is always hard. Knowing and operating with your
Core Values in mind makes these decisions much easier. How do you
chose which projects to undertake?How do you communicate roadmap
activities with customers and staff?What features do you decide to
add to products?
How do you chose which projects to undertake?When we talk to
hosting companies about the challenges they face on a day-today
basis, 8 out of 10 times they cite prioritization as something they
struggle with. Maybe you already have a system for prioritization
that includes things like Level of Effort, ROI and Customer and or
Operational Impact. But I would guess that even with those hard
metrics you STILL have trouble deciding where to concentrate your
efforts. Adding Core Values to your analysis helps bring your
decision making process into focus. Some examples of decisions that
are easier when put through the lens of your core values include:
How you communicate roadmap activities with customers and staff and
What features you decide to add to products
Values in Action
Marketing/PR Revisit your marketing and PR activities, look for
opportunities to highlight your values and culture Does your
website reflect what you value as an organization?Shamelessly and
boldly list your core values on your website. Is your advertising
true to your values?
Does your website reflect what you value as an organization?Do
visitors get a sense of your corporate personality. Does the energy
that your values create come across?
Shamelessly and boldly list your core values on your
websiteTease them on the home page and include an expanded
description one layer in. Have fun with it, and dont forget to use
photos of your own people.
Is your advertising true to your values?Do those banners,
stickies and ads sell your companys personality, not just your
product
Values in Action
Partnerships and VendorsAlignment with partners is crucial,
especially when you are reselling products and services.When
evaluating new partners ask, Do they share our values?Do the
services and support they give you, boost not only your goals, but
your values?Are you currently working with vendors who are so
different from you in their goals, values, and corporate
personality that it is causing discord?
When evaluating new partners ask, Do they share our values? As
an example, an organization that values transparency probably would
not partner with a company that operates on closed systems
You can also ask:Do the services and support they give you
reflect your goals and your values?An organization that prides
itself on top service is going to be disappointed by a partnership
with a company that doesnt prioritize customer service.
Are you currently working with vendors who are so different from
you in their goals, values and corporate personality that it is
causing discord?We have seen many business relationships struggle
when they arent working towards similar ends, leveraging similar
values
Values in Action
SalesPeople are buying a relationship with you, not just the
products and services you offer. Be transparent about who you are
and the customers that align with your values will fall in line.
Train Sales staff to speak Core ValuesExamine your sales
processSell your values
People are buying a relationship with you, not just the products
and services you offer. Be transparent about who you are and the
customers that you align with will want to do business with you.
BONUS: You get to work with customers that are like you!
Train sales staff to Speak Core valuesThe language sales staff
uses to describe products and services should highlight your
values.
Examine your sales processLook at how you are selling. Are you
treating would-be customers the way your values dictate? If one of
your values is honesty, are you being honest and setting proper
expectations about what you can and cant deliver?
Sell your valuesUse your values to sell! Chances are that from a
technology standpoint you sell the same thing someone else at this
conference sells. Differentiate yourself during the sales process
using your core values. Sell them on people, the company, the
experience.
Values in Action
SupportIf you have applied values to your recruiting, hiring,
onboarding, training, and employee development this part is EASY.
Just sit back and watch your support team live and promote your
values in every interaction with customers.
SUPPORT. This is the easiest and best place to let your Values
shine! If you have applied values to your recruiting, hiring,
onboarding, training, and employee development this part is EASY.
Just sit back and watch your support team live and promote your
values in every interaction with customers. Let the energy your
values create flow through them to the customers.
If you are here at World Hosting Days its highly likely that
support is big part of your value proposition, Core Values add fuel
to your support.
Want more Info?
Visit our website or email us. Wed love to talk to you about how
we can help your company uncover and leverage your core values.
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