A Framework for Defining the Values We Want to be Known FOR

While the best organizations I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with or studying are indeed build on foundation of strong values, it never happens by chance. Even the best of intentions won’t come close to producing the lasting results we’re capable of achieving when we develop the discipline of adhering to a simple framework. And that framework needs to be one for defining the values we want our organizations to be known FOR…

Asking ourselves these three basic questions is easy enough. Answering them honestly, especially if we’re not happy with our answers, takes quite a bit of courage - at least it did for us!

I’ve studied leadership, communication, and human behavior more in my life than any other topics. Cindy and I have worked closely with some amazing leaders and their entire organizations as we’ve pursued what we now list as our mission statement: “Improving Your Profitability by Building Better Leaders.” Through all that, we’ve spoken with leaders across the United States about the importance of ensuring each individual on their team has complete clarity about how the work they’re responsible for ties back to their organization’s mission, vision, and values. While we were seeing many of them achieve solid results, we realized we were the cobblers who had no shoes. Although Cindy and I definitely shared a some deeply held values that have helped us build a strong marriage and business partnership, we hadn’t taken the time to put them to paper for anyone to see. We realized that to have the IMPACT we truly wanted to have, we needed to lead by example in this area as much as in any other. So here are the cobblers’ shoes:

• Intentionality - We are intentional in everything we do, ensuring we make a positive difference daily;
• Measurability - Measuring the results we help each client achieve;
• People - People first in every decision we make;
• Action - Because that’s what people see, hear, and feel;
• Community - Building strong relationship with and between the organizations we serve;
• Together - Because no one makes a lasting IMPACT by themselves!

I won’t begin to pretend that these are perfect, but they’re ours. And you’re welcome to reach out to either of us on any given day if you’d like to go into detail about how we work to model each of these in our lives and through the work we do. That said, we wouldn’t have been able to have the same kind of conversation around any of our values just a few years ago; we’ve had to work extremely hard at identifying exactly what we wanted to be known for.

We did take it a step further by defining what each value meant, but so did Enron… The difference lies in how we’ve worked to answer Henderson’s first question - What do you want to be known for? - for each of the values we listed by developing a crystal-clear picture of what each means to us in practice:

• Intentionality - We are intentional in everything we do, ensuring we make a positive difference daily;
• Cindy and I routinely review our workload, the clients we support, and our overall messaging to make sure everything we do ties back to the clear purpose that drives us. As you can imagine, that often results in pulling away from some things and placing more focus on others.
• Measurability - Measuring the results we help each client achieve;
• I frequently (like at the end of every lesson we share) tell the story of the HR Manager I worked for who always tasked me with showing a measurable improvement in productivity or profitability after any event I attended. Profitability matters! If we’re not working to help every client we serve achieve increased productivity and profitability through the tools we provide, we don’t deserve their trust - or their business.
• People - People first in every decision we make;
• Cindy and I are both primarily task-oriented (she’s a high C-blend and I’m an extremely high D-blend in terms of the DISC Model of Human Behavior). All too often, organizations are viewed as lifeless entities. That’s never the case. The people in those organizations drive results, for good or bad. By placing people first in every decision we make, we’ve been able to achieve results we would have never seen otherwise. That said, there have been times where not being willing to tolerate people being treated poorly has cost us tremendous amounts of money. I’m willing to sacrifice money, I’m not willing to compromise my character.
• Action - Because that’s what people see, hear, and feel;
• One of the first things I learned in behavior-based safety is that attitudes and emotions by themselves cannot be measured. That’s why we studied behavior. To simplify this, talk is cheap… We work to exemplify everything we teach daily, and we accept responsibility when we drop the ball. We’ve all heard it said that “our actions to speak so loudly that no one hears what we’re saying.” But when our words are backed by our actions, the people we serve can trust what we’re saying.
• Community - Building strong relationship with and between the organizations we serve;
• Cindy and I have been extraordinarily blessed through the relationships we’ve been able to develop. We cherish the time we have, be that through the work we do or the friendships we’ve built, with so many of the clients I’ve mentioned as examples for how they’ve effectively modeled their core values. Few things give us more fulfillment than having the opportunity to connect good people with good people. Proverbs 27:17 says “As iron sharpens ires, so one person sharpens another.” Be it through our Executive Leadership Elite Think Tank, our IMPACT Leadership Academy, any public event we host, or just through making personal introductions, we actively work at building a leadership community where everyone involved grows stronger.
• Together - Because no one makes a lasting IMPACT by themselves!
• This ties back to Community, but I needed a “T” to finish out IMPACT… While I’m (kinda) kidding, the reality is that I’ve never felt like I’ve been very good at any one thing. That said, I’ve been blessed beyond measure to have worked for and with a bunch of amazing people who have helped me achieve some remarkable things that I never could have on my own. I tell people all that time that I’d get a hell of a lot of work done if I were in business by myself but since Cindy is by my side, there’s a chance you’ll actually like it. The same holds true for what businesses can achieve together. Every organization has limited resources, but collaborating with others can give any organization an exponential reach.

I’ll stress once more that these are by no means perfect, but we work daily to be known FOR each value listed. With these fresh in your mind, how much specificity can you go into about each of your core company values? What do you want to be known for? And how clearly can each of your team members picture (and articulate) this?

This is by no means simple, but it’s by far the easiest of the three questions Jeff Henderson challenged us with. Now, let’s look at how important it is to be willing to learn what we’re really known for…

What Does Your IMPACT Really Look Like?

As with so many of companies “that more than 80% published an official set of corporate values on their website” having definitions posted - or even detailing a picture of what we want those values to mean - makes little impact if that’s not what we’re actually known for. Wearing a He-Man costume at Halloween didn’t turn me into the powerful defender of Eternia, and simply listing the values we want to be known for doesn’t necessarily equate to what we’re actually known for. 

In some cases, a disconnect between the two comes from an innocent misunderstanding about how our teams or the community we serve truly perceives our alignment with our stated core values. I’ve seen many scenarios where the folks in leadership roles are wonderful folks and those closest to them avoid having a candid conversation about a mismatch between the stated values and what they’re seeing to keep from hurting anyone’s feelings. At times, the disconnect comes from unmanaged expectations - be that within the organization or even with the clients we serve. Sometimes, though, the folks most willing to “discuss their company’s culture or core values — even when not specifically asked about it” are far more interested in talking a good talk than actually walking a good walk. As we looked how we can rally our teams about our core values, I shared examples of how executives spouting off about how they prioritize others while actively undermining the exact folks they claimed to serve can quickly lose the trust of the their team members as well as anyone watching from the outside.

If we’re genuinely interested in learning what we’re known for - what our impact actually looks like as opposed to just what we want it to look like - we’ll need to actively solicit input from folks we can trust to provide us with candid feedback. Make no mistake though, this isn’t as simple as sending out an anonymous survey and calling it done. We’ll need to schedule time with people who can and will offer their honest opinion, but we also need to be sure they have the right perspective on what we’re working to achieve and they have our best interests at heart. Remember what I shared about “Alliance Feedback” as we looked at removing the ambiguity as we defined our values?

Cindy and I have hosted large events and worked with small groups at their locations for more than a decade. Early on, I remember seeing folks who did similar work end their sessions by having participants complete a “Satisfaction Survey”. These “check yes or no” forms rarely provided any specific feedback regarding what added value or what could be improved, and there was really no context for what the participant expected coming into the session. Just like filling in a bubble on an evaluation form is of little help without being tied to actual behavior, someone checking a box saying the liked or disliked a session doesn’t provide anything we can build on. That being the case, I scrapped the widespread surveys early on and have been very intentional ever since to nail down time with specific participants so I can ask them direct questions. In each case, those participants have been folks with perspectives I could learn from AND I trusted them to be open about how they really felt. All too often, folks look for feedback from people they know will back their opinion or stroke their ego; that’s not “Alliance Feedback” and it definitely won’t help us learn what our impact really looks like.

At this stage in my career, I have at least a dozen people I can reach out to for this kind of candid, specific, and measurable feedback. Whether their input encourages me or it stings, I trust their motives, I know they have my best interests at heart, and I’m completely certain that they understand the impact I want to be known for. I never take this for granted, with regards to our business or any other aspect of my life - not even when my friend told me I was fat!

Receiving this kind of feedback on what we’re really known for is crucial, but then we’ve got to use it in answering Henderson’s third question. That take guts! Before we work through that though, I’ll challenge you to make a list of the folks you can count on to provide you with a clear and honest evaluation of what your impact really looks like so you have something solid to compare with what you want that impact to look like…

Making the Two Match

Developing clarity around the specific impact we want to have on everyone we’re serving through our core values will require focus. Building strong alliances with trusted sources we can count on to provide us with candid feedback on how we are (or aren’t) living up to those values takes time and incredibly intentional effort; having a bunch of folks check a box on a survey won’t cut it! Assuming we’re willing to do the hard work necessary for achieving each of these, we’ve got a shot at being able to answer Jeff Henderson’s third question: Do they match?

Previously as we looked about how living out our values can build a reputation that builds results, I referenced a conversation Cindy and I have with Carly Fiorina in late 2019 where she emphasized the importance of taking a “clear-eyed look at our existing state if we wanted to have any hope of achieving our desired future state.” We won’t be able to take that clear-eyed look without becoming completely locked in on the answers to each of those first questions; What do we want to be known for? and What are we known for? Making the comparison, or coming to terms with our current state, is where we’ll need to have guts!

While this won’t take courage like racing into a burning building or charging enemy troops, we will need to be brave enough to accept the differences we uncover. The perceptions shared with us may sting, and in some cases, there may be little we’re able to do (or choose to do) to change them. As much as we work to model what our values mean to us, there will be times where others have different expectations. 

Whether we need to close the gap between what we’re doing and what we hope to achieve or re-frame how we manage the expectations a team member or client has around our values, aligning what we want our impact to look like and what that impact really looks like can be a steep hill to climb. But it will never happen without seeking and accepting input, then actively making some changes. Once we’ve identified the work we’ll need to do in closing any gaps, our job - as leaders - lies in being absolutely fanatical about instilling our values into every aspect of our organizational culture. Don’t sweat it, though, this fanaticism relies far more on consistency than intensity - so we’ll pick up there soon.