Building a culture around values requires the leader to provide a daily example of exactly how each definition outlined in the handbook and on the wall directly applies to what’s required of them. Providing a detailed explanation, connecting those definitions to their behaviors so nothing is left to...

In the fourth lesson of our Emerging Leader Development course, Cindy and I detail five critical practices for effective communication. In that process, we emphasize just how important it is that we keep our message simple and we share it over and over and over again with absolute consistency. Cindy...

Before a potential wound festers, let’s make sure we clean it up properly. I occasionally ruffle feathers when I compare the actions our team members take to those of our children. I don’t mean that to be one bit belittling. If I’m being honest, I’m at least as capable of doing something immature (a...

Think back to what I referenced before about companies having wonderfully crafted mission and vision statements framed majestically in their lobbies for their visiting dignitaries to marvel at. Here’s the AI overview I got from adding “mission, vision, culture, values” in the Google search bar: 

A ...

While the foundation for the residential construction projects I was involved with in my teens was on a much smaller scale than the skyscrapers I alluded to earlier, they were no less important to the long term stability of the home. The same holds true for the core values in a business of any size....

As we wrapped up our look at who ultimately cares about our values, and how much our organization’s entire reputation rests on them, I emphasized the importance of modeling our values and explaining why - because we can’t just assume the general public will piece it all together on their own; they’r...

We started this look at how values serve as the foundation for every organization and how things can go wrong when that foundation isn’t in place. From there, we worked through the importance of clearly defining our organizational values, and how doing so can truly rally our team members, earn buy-i...

Make no mistake, there’s a huge difference between touting how amazing we are and in explaining how or why our actions tie back to our values. We’ve all been around folks who have a title that carries some level of authority, and seen them pound their chest about how important they are or why everyo...

Even when we’ve done everything in our power to model the core values our business is built on, we can’t just assume that everyone who cares about those values will automatically connect our behaviors to the reputation we’re working to establish (or maintain). It’s up to us to explain why we’ve chos...

During a conversation Cindy and I had with Carly Fiorina several years ago, 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 - personally, professionally, and with the entire team we’re leading. The ...

Prior to me starting at that manufacturing facility in early 1996, and for the first fifteen years I worked there, one of the largest and most reliable sources for identifying new candidates was a referral from a senior employee. As you can likely imagine, the referrals from the best employees dried...

I’ll ask you once more: Who ultimately cares about your values? Our immediate team members most certainly do. And so do the clients we serve directly as well as the community we’re a part of. But everyone else who hears about us will too, and all of that will impact the results we achieve in one way...