Are your company values valuable?

You’ve heard the old adage that “you are what you eat,” perhaps something equally appropriate for quarterly or annual planning—you are what you value. 

• A study by Accenture showed that “Nearly two-thirds of consumers globally (63 percent) prefer to buy goods and services from companies that stand for a shared purpose that reflects their personal values and beliefs, and are ditching those that don’t.” 

• Glassdoor reports that "Company culture is among the top five factors people consider when weighing a job offer.” 

• And empty, generic values (think: teamwork, customer satisfaction, innovation, “integrity”) do more harm than good these days. 
  

If you want your values to mean something—you have to make them meaningful. 

Think about the following prompts as you make decisions, lead meetings, and position your company in the coming months.

Take a stand.

Consider these questions as you whittle down to worthy words:

• What makes you stand out as a great place to work?

• What makes you stand up and celebrate a job well done?

• What do you stand for even if it means standing alone?

• What do you stand behind no matter the consequences?

Take action.

As we often say in our Badass Brand Playbook course and working sessions: your values have values—meaning, every value should have a specific metric that confirms whether or not you are behaving in accordance with your company standards.

A recent article in Forbes agrees: Your core values should define how your team operates, behaves, and interacts on a day-to-day basis.

Take notice.

Another Forbes gem reinforces that core values “should be supported by accountability mechanisms that can be easily integrated into a performance management system.

In other words, incorporate your core values into everything you do—your decisions, your emails, your team meetings, and hiring decisions. If an initiative doesn’t match your values—you shouldn’t be doing it. 

Take turns.

Recognize & reward behaviors and examples of your core values being brought to light. Explain to your team why you made a decision and what values showed up in your process—and recognize the feats of others who take the same considerations.

If you are building a mission-driven, values-based company—and I know many of you are—you need to lead from the front here. The best way to give your team the permission to act in your company’s best interest is to model it daily.

Take heart.

A sign of strong core values is being willing to leave money or opportunity on the table when it goes against who you are and strive to be.“

Two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it,” says Simon Sinek in Start With Why. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” 

Core values give your “why” some jet fuel. 

Here’s what I want you to remember. If you don’t have your company core values all mapped out and measurable, now is the perfect time to lay them out. The good news? Chances are they aren’t a far cry to your personal values (your company is mostly you, after all). 

Take 30 minutes and do our Life Values Exercise—there’s a good chance you’ll learn something great about yourself—and build something great for your company while you’re at it.

There are some steps that great companies—and unforgettable humans—can’t skip.

This is one of them.

Something else you shouldn’t skip? The chance to surround yourself with like-minded business owners, an arsenal of battle-tested tools, and a phenomenal support team. Get all this and more when you join our Cohort.

Bill covers topics like this (and then some) on LinkedIn all the time—connect and join the conversation!