What traits and values would they process?
A number of years ago I sat in a conference room filled with fellow managers, owners and CEO’s. The topic was Corporate Culture and the presenter was sharing how to develop Core Values for your organization. We were challenged with the thought of having to start a new civilization on another planet. In starting that civilization, we would have to travel in a rocket ship with limited space for only a few people. Who would populate that ship? What would be the traits and values of the people that you would select in starting anew?
When developing our Core Values for our organization we asked ourselves “who are our BEST employees?” Why were they our best employees? What qualities made them the best? We came up with a few people that always stood out. We started to come up with words or descriptions that painted a picture of who they were. They CARE. They are DEPENDABLE. They always HUSTLE and find ways to say YES in getting things done. They look to create WIN-WIN situations and RESPECT others. They had INTEGRITY, you could trust them. They were always look to LEARN in order to improve. They found ways to work smarter, not harder by using LEAN principles. Oh, and they seemed to have FUN while doing all this. We debated over months and added a few along the way until we settled on our TOP 10 that became our Core Values.
Once we identified the singular words, we started to define them. We defined them with a few sentences or a paragraph describing these values. We then went on to paint a picture of each value in order to give a deep meaning and understanding of what each Core Value means. Our work was not finished. Yes, we printed cards with these values on them to hand out. We developed poster of each value that we hung on the walls. We posted them on our company website Mission Statement And Values (gospikes.com) . BUT, this gained true traction when we started to hire and fire based on these Core Values. We wanted to find more people like our best. We started to coach to these traits. We let some people go who didn’t want to live by these values. That is when it started to take hold. This NOT EASY to do. We are still a work in progress. But the work has been worth it. The difference in our company before and after this process, and Core Value journey, has been night and day. It has made a significant difference. It is much more of a joy to come to work every day for all of us.