Good Intentions Are Never Enough

I’ll quote John once more just to make sure it sinks in: “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” If we’re not excited about how our core values are currently serving as the foundation of our organization, that’s on us as leaders. If we are happy with that foundation, keep up the good work - and be sure to acknowledge everyone on the team who’s played a role in consistently modeling those values to get to this point. The best leaders I’ve ever had the privilege of working with have been quick to accept responsibility for missteps and even quicker to share the credit for success. All said, I’ve seen some really good people in leadership roles who have had the best of intentions but still fell far short of building a strong foundation around the values they held most dear. Good intentions are NEVER enough!

Through this process, I’ve provided multiple examples detailing how some of our closest friends and most cherished clients have instilled their core organizational values into the culture of the teams they lead. None of that has happened by accident; all of them have been diligent in talking about and exemplifying their values daily. And this hasn’t been something they were able to do for a short period before it took hold, it often takes years. For perspective, I’ll emphasize once more that it took Truett Cathy - the guy who invented God’s chicken sandwich - ten years to embed the “My Pleasure” that you and I expect to hear (multiple times in any Chick-fil-A visit today) into his organization’s standard behavior and vocabulary.

Cindy and I had two separate conversation recently where we’ve stressed exactly this, both with outstanding folks leading strong teams. In our last session with an executive team we’re supporting, we talked with the group extensively about the importance of ensuring every single member of their respective teams were crystal clear on the impact their organization was striving to achieve with each client they serve. One of the senior members of the group asked if it was possible to talk about their organization’s purpose too often. I was adamant that there’s no such thing as “too often” when our that purpose is meaningful. The same holds true for weaving our values into conversations with our teams. When those values really matter, and I can’t think of a situation where they wouldn’t, there’s no such thing as too much.

In the second conversation, a key leader in an organization we work with shared what he perceived as resistance as he had started detailing an organizational purpose with his team. As we talked through this with him, it sounded more as though this team members were processing the idea than pushing back on it. We encouraged him to stay the course and be sure to include the impact they’re having on everyone they serve in every conversation he has with his team; as a group and one-on-one.

Much like many great people we’ve worked with over the years, both of these leaders cared deeply about each member of their teams. Neither wanted to come across as sharing a canned message or being redundant. All too often, we understand the message we’ve shared with our team and assume they’ve received it just as we expressed it. We have the best of intentions; intentions for making a positive impact on everyone involved without coming across as too pushy. But even with the best intentions, we can fall far short of our goal. Having a framework for detailing our values explicitly and consistently enough to build them into the foundation of our organization is crucial. To wrap up this entire process, we’ll work through a simple and strategic process for leading from a foundation of clearly defined core values.