3 Steps for Success Through Company Values
Our team discussing core values and goals throughout our Kauai retreat
If asked, could each of your employees state your company’s core values?
And if so, would they be able to say they see the company living those values?
Just about every business book and management course will tell you that company culture dictates success.
For example, a “Harvard Professional & Executive Development” article stated, “A poor workplace culture can negatively impact a person’s wellbeing. It can also significantly impact the company’s bottom line, leading to low productivity and high turnover.
“In contrast, people working in companies that have a positive corporate culture are healthier, happier, more productive, and less likely to leave. Research also shows that companies with positive workplace cultures have higher average annual returns.”
We all know company culture rooted in core values is important, so how to make yours flourish?
- Establish it
- Reinforce it
- Protect it
Establish Your Values
It all starts with defining your company values, then actually bringing those values to life in every department initiative, team meeting, one-on-one conversation, client interaction, etc., etc.
With our team, we’ve used the Values & Vision Statement tool as a guide in developing our company values.
We’ve clearly outlined those values and put them in writing. We also keep them top-of-mind by talking about them regularly. (Click here to see LASER Financial’s Core Values.)
Reinforce Your Values
At last year’s companywide Business Retreat With a Purpose in Kauai, for example, we carved out time to focus on our values. We talked about how we want to emulate what William George Jordan counsels in his book, “The Majesty of Calmness”: to consciously train our minds to unconsciously live our values.
As another example, one of our core values is gratitude, and at a recent team meeting, we led the group through The Gratitude Amplifier exercise. Afterward, the team shared that they felt invigorated, reflecting on things they were grateful for in both their professional and personal lives, and identifying ways to pay that gratitude forward.
We’ve also found it can be fun to gamify core values. One of our core values is to create a healthy environment. So one month, we held a healthy diet and exercise challenge.
We outlined the parameters, including things like daily steps, with team members tracking and reporting progress along the way. When the month came to an end, we celebrated everyone’s progress and awarded prizes to the top achievers.
(Incidentally, one of our team members at the time created a platform for gamifying the health challenge, and he’s since gone on to launch an app, 100 Day Hero, that companies can use for similar challenges.)
Protect Your Values
As leadership, it’s important to protect your values by ensuring they’re emulated throughout the company. In executive meetings, we’ll often do check-ins, asking ourselves:
- Are we as leadership living the values?
- Is “the water getting to the end of the row”? In other words, is the importance of the values getting all the way from leadership out to our IUL specialists, team leaders, administrative staff, etc.?
- Is there buy-in from everyone?
On that last point, the question often arises — what do you do when an employee chooses not to align with your company values?
For us, that’s a huge point of concern. Another one of our values is we’re “slow to hire, quick to fire,” because culture is so important to us. We’ll always take the time to help someone develop and grow within our culture. However, if resistance to our culture becomes a chronic issue, they could have all the skills in the world, but if team members don’t embrace the culture, we’ll ultimately let them go.
As you focus on your company values, one last piece of advice I’d give: Think of it as a living document. Your core values are something you want to revisit periodically, get feedback from your team members, and continue to refine over time.
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Want to use powerful tools like The Gratitude Amplifier and Values & Vision Statement with your team? Get full access to the 3 Dimensional Wealth Toolbox (30+ tools) by joining Legacy Masters or the 3 Dimensional Wealth Community. Click here to learn more today!
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As entrepreneurs, we’re often asked to share business strategies, which we’re happy to pass along to our professional clients via our books, YouTube channel, podcast, and here in our “3 Dimensional Wealth Living” Business Builder column.
