Using Core Values to Guide Your Business Decisions
Episode 756: Show Notes
We didn't realize how much we would come to rely on our business values. They are central to how we operate our team, answer questions, and so much more. Initially, your company operations are typically a reflection of you personally, but as you grow, that doesn’t always make sense. As you work with more and more clients, we recommend identifying one to three values to shape how you serve clients, what your boundaries will be, how you prefer to communicate, your work style or ethic, and beyond.
Deciding on your core values is critical to your business, and this is something we stress in our coaching programs. Especially as you engage with employees and contractors, having an internal value that is very specific to how your team runs is critical to your team culture and getting everyone on the same page. It helps settle conversations about what to do next by providing a lens through which to view things. When you need to have a redirecting conversation with a client, your business values are the strongest tool you have at your disposal to explain what you do and do not offer.
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The Best Way to Start Identifying Your Business Values
Most public companies publish their business values online. You can literally just Google it. That can be a great source of inspiration. Take a look at how business values are showing up in other places as a way to begin to identify your own. When you see it somewhere else, it can reflect what you are already doing but haven’t identified yet. An example of this is Zappos, a company so customer-centric that entire books have been written about how they’ve managed to achieve this.
One Non-Negotiable Step You Have to Take After Identifying Your Values
You can’t just have a list of five words and feel confident that you’re going to live in those and that your team is going to live in those, and your clients are going to follow. You have to add four steps to each value, and actually identify what it means to you! It could be something totally different than what comes to mind when we think of that word. Explain it in the lens of your business, serving your clients. How can you, your clients, and your team show up in that value? Actually map out what it means. On the flip side, what does it look like to not live in that value? Next, you’re going to put some curiosity questions in place to make sure you’re bringing that value to life.
The Foundation of Setting Your Culture in Place
Last year, we developed a team playbook that applies to business values and how you show up in all ways. It’s relevant for things that anyone and everyone will encounter. Putting a centralized location in place that your team can reference and you can use as an onboarding tool allows you to create clarity. If you don’t make it clear how things should be prioritized, people are going to prioritize according to their own set of values, which may not be in alignment with yours. An example of this at Boss Project is our commitment to healthy conflict within our team. We want to hear different opinions. We also aren’t seeking consensus. At the end of the day, we fall back on our values to make a final decision. That’s how our ‘Disagree and Commit’ policy works.
How Our Life-First Value Informs Our Time Off Structure
We set aside our time off on our company calendar at the very start of the year. It was the first time we had a large team with many employees, and we wanted to mark the time off ahead of time so that it actually happened. A two-week midsummer break was part of that.
After that long break, there were mixed reviews from our team, so we offered the whole team an anonymous survey to find a consensus on how everyone felt. We discovered that most of our team members were more interested in shorter breaks throughout the year than a two-week break in July. Now that we know that, we can plan future time off differently.
You’ll find that your team will generally get behind an idea if they can see where it’s rooted. And you definitely need to revisit your team playbook once a year, look at everything you’ve set as a precedent and see what needs to change.
You can still experiment with new things throughout the year. You can make changes at any time based on anything that happens, but this is a natural time to reflect. Utilize it to not just look at time off for your team, but all the aspects of how you are running your team from an operational perspective. Take inventory of what you notice when you are more busy, and you can implement those when things are quiet.
We’re excited for you to dive in and define the things that set up your team for success. If you’re not sure where to start, we offer coaching around setting up your team playbook. Reach out to us and let's have a conversation about what that would look like.
Quote This
Your values are the foundation of you setting your culture in place.
Highlights
The Best Way to Start Identifying Your Business Values [0:16:32]
One Non-Negotiable Step You Have to Take After Identifying Your Values [0:04:22]
The Foundation of Setting Your Culture in Place [0:23:27]
How Our Life-First Value Informs Our Time Off Structure [0:26:34]
Today’s Guest:
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
The Strategy Hour Podcast is a twice weekly show hosted by Abagail Pumphrey and Emylee Williams, the founders of Boss Project. Join us for semi-ranty biz conversations for service providers looking to ethically grow their agency businesses. Episodes cover everything from lead generation to leadership mindset to team culture and beyond.
Key Topics:
Team Culture, Business Values, Life First Value, Team Playbook , Decision Making, Future Planning
