Weaving Our Values Everything We Do

Assuming you’ve taken to heart the idea of consistency trumping intensity and the importance of wearing our values on our sleeves, even if you don’t feel like you quite built either completely into your routine yet, we’re at a great place. Each are critical role pieces in the framework for laying a solid foundation around those core values. And with those in place, now we just need to be intentional about continuing to weave each value into every aspect of what we do.

Before I move on, let me stress once more: taking a few basic steps daily will have a far bigger (and longer lasting) impact than one massive spurt of effort that’s not sustained. Quite frankly, that spurt may do more harm than good, especially if our teams see us pounding our chests about something we claim is important one day then don’t hear us mention again in the weeks or months that follow. Early in my manufacturing career, I heard the term “flavor of the month” used as a label for the latest and greatest corporate initiative that was going to revolution everything we did. It wasn’t long until I understood why so many things received that title; most started with a flurry of activity and excited, or at least emphasis, but few were ever maintained long enough to produce measurable results. No single group of folks held complete responsibility for any particular initiative falling flat, unless we consider Maxwell’s statement that “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” Looking back, though, the one common theme I can point to would be that most of those were being pushed from a land far, far away (the corporate HQ) by people who rarely (if ever) set foot in our facility with the expectation of massive immediate changes but no plan for ongoing sustainability. The one process that stuck around was the behavior-based safety process I was involved in. I’m certainly not taking credit for that, at least not initially, since I didn’t take the reigns until it had been in place for close to three years; few other initiatives ever made it that long. I believe it’s sticking power rested on getting a lot of people involved but asking for very little support from each of them.

Weaving our core values into every aspect of how our organizations do business will rest solely on our shoulders to begin with, but when we can effectively communicate how each ties to the work we do and the work our team members do daily our lift becomes significantly lighter. Our consistent message and example will, sooner or later, spill over into what each individual on our team does. While this may seem like a slow and painful process at first, the impact will eventually be exponential - inside our organization and with everyone we deal with externally.

Just in case I haven’t stressed it enough, sharing a simple and consistent message around our core values carries far more weight than a parade of pomp and circumstance that we never refer to again. My challenge to you here is to get incredibly intentional about how you weave your company’s core values into everything you say and do, then make sure you have a system (or maybe even a dedicated person) for holding you accountable to sticking with your messaging and example until it become a part of who you are. This will serve as the framework for laying your foundation. Then you’ll just need to add some bracing to make sure everything stays in place, so we’ll work through that soon.