Everything, According to Our Values
Having detailed why a framework for building the foundation of our organizations around our core values is so important and now having three simple steps layed out to serve as the framework - consistent communication, keeping our values visible all the time, and intentionally weaving them into every aspect of our operation - there’s one thing left to work through, and it’s the most critical piece of making anything we’ve done stick. We absolutely must develop the discipline to do everything, every single day, according to our core values.
As we started this look at the role values play, I shared my experience in early 2022 that’s served as a textbook example for how quickly leaders changed a culture in a 75 year old organization by applying those three steps. The consistent and heart-felt approach Craig and Kim used earned buy-in with even the most tenured team members where a forced intensity would have likely had the affect of swatting a fly on someone’s forehead - with a hammer! I mentioned it earlier but it’s worth sharing again for emphasis: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the annual average for voluntary turnover is just shy of twenty-five percent across all industries. Using their core values as a the foundation for everything they did from the day they acquired the company resulted in just five percent voluntary turnover over TWO YEARS.
In his book Traction, Gino Wickman, says, “Once they’re defined, you must hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize people based on these core values. This is how to build a thriving culture around them.” To date, I’ve been involved in nearly every hiring decision Craig and Kim have made - not because I necessarily enjoy that work at this point or have time in my schedule, but because I know the atmosphere they will provide for anyone joining their team. We’ve been blessed to interact with a constant flow of qualified candidates for just about every position that’s been open, and even some for positions that weren’t open. Regardless of qualifications, though, we’ve been very careful to look for a match in values. Quite frankly, that’s something we’ve seen in many of the organizations I’ve pointed to as examples through this process. But even when this is top-of-mind throughout the onboarding process, no one gets it right every time.
Wickman’s suggestion to “review, reward, and recognize people based on these core values” should be almost automatic if we’ve developed the discipline to truly weave our values into all that we do. The part I’ve seen even some of the toughest and crustiest executives struggle with, though, has been the firing part. Truth be told, I struggled with that too when that responsibility first landed in my lap. Although terminations are often considered “involuntary turnover” in studies like the one from the BLS, I’ll submit to you that when someone repeatedly chooses behavior that isn’t aligned with the core values we detailed and modeled, any disciplinary action or termination that follows was absolutely voluntary. When our foundation really is built on our values, everything else is simple; our decisions are made by watching the behaviors each team member (candidate or client) chooses.
Notice I said everything else is simple; not easy! The best leaders I’ve ever had the privilege to be around have genuinely cared for every member of their teams. Even when someone repeatedly chooses to violate our core values, it can be incredibly hard (at least mentally and emotionally) to hold them accountable. But when we do, and when we consistently make every other decision around those core values, the momentum will build.
Consistency Builds Momentum
Let’s consider Gino Wickman’s statement again: “Once they’re defined, you must hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize people based on these core values. This is how to build a thriving culture around them.” If we’re willing to take this to heart and consistently act on everything according to our values, momentum will build. I’d love to claim that this will be easy and happen immediately; that’s just not how things work. In every industry, there’s always that one example that seems to wreck the curve, appearing to be the overnight model of perfection. We’ve all heard the phrase that “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” While that may indeed be what we see from a distance, my three and half decades in the workplace and over twenty-five years studying leadership have shown me that the grass in those organizations becomes that way in one of two ways: it’s growing over top a septic field or someone put in a hell of a lot of work to make it that way.
Just in case you’ve always lived in a metropolitan area and you’re not familiar with a septic field, I’ll paint you a picture. Cindy and I live in a rural area that doesn’t have water and sewer systems that are maintained by a municipality. Our water comes from a well and a septic system was installed as our home was built. In the driest weeks of the summer, our grass gets very crispy and brown except directly above the seven drain lines from our septic tank. (Thank God our well has provided a steady flow of water through it all.) All of the used water, and everything else that goes down the drain or gets flushed, is processed through the septic tank located just outside the house and the liquid is dispersed to those lines. I’ll spare you the complete lesson on how it all works but, as you can image, we wouldn’t want to plant a garden in that area regardless of how green the grass stays. To keep the rest of our two and a half acres that green all summer long would be a monumental undertaking.
The companies I’ve seen that have built thriving cultures around their core values by developing the discipline to “hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize people based on these core values” are those where the leaders, often just one or two to begin with, have invested a tremendous amount effort to build the momentum necessary to get anyone else’s buy-in. But as those leaders have done that consistently over time, and the leaders they’ve worked to develop around them follow suit, that momentum builds - often much more slowly than anyone would like. In the cases where that green grass is over top the septic field, where a magical culture appears to have popped up overnight, the fresh vegetables served at the company picnic will eventually taste like the crap they were grown in…
If you’ve ever noticed how perfect a Major League Baseball field looks, just know it’s not by accident. Not only are entire teams of people involved in getting it to this point and keeping it that way, they’re very protective of their work. Only the players go on the field, and only just before and during the games. They don’t practice there in the off-season. And those fields are covered during any other events that are hosted in the ballpark. If I put all that time, effort, and money into making my yard look that nice, I sure wouldn’t want my neighbors kids or dogs doing their business on it. When we’ve done the work to build our values into our culture, and we’ve finally built momentum around those values, we’ll need to be just as protective as the groundskeepers at a Major League ballpark or Clint Eastwood with his lawn.
Protect Our Culture (and Values) at All Cost
If you’ve been disciplined enough to consistently (and fanatically) follow the simple framework for instilling the core values you’ve defined into your organization’s culture, I have no doubt that your grass is at least starting to be incredibly green - to anyone on either side of the fence. And the steps you’ve taken will serve to eliminate even the slightest perception of that green grass being over top a septic field, at least for anyone being remotely honest with themselves.
That said, a reality every leader will face at one point or another is the need to deal with individuals who simply don’t hold the same values. I’ve shared examples several times to this point detailing how some of the best leaders and business owners I’ve had the privilege of supporting have passed up extremely talented candidates because they didn’t feel like those candidates matched their organizational values. The challenge is that even the most comprehensive interview process will only reveal so much.
Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric who was know for his keen ability to identify and hire great candidates, once said that even the best only make the right hires fifty percent of the time. I’m certainly not going to argue his numbers. While I’ve never considered myself to be the best at interviewing or identifying great potential team members, I do believe I’ve gotten really good at it by doing it A LOT. Like anything we do often enough, recognizing a match with our values is a skill we can develop. Even then though, there will be times where we miss a glaring flag or we just get it wrong. There will also be times where something changes in a team member’s life and they no longer align with our core values - even if they did for years prior.
Regardless of when we recognize the mismatch, how it comes to our attention, or when in the relationship it occurs, part of our responsibility as leaders is to address it directly and swiftly. Earlier, as I emphasized that expectations without accountability are empty talk, I made a point that I’ll revisit once more because it’s so often misunderstood: addressing an issue that isn’t aligned with our core values doesn’t always involve formal disciplinary action. In many cases, a team member missing the mark has - at least in their mind - a very legitimate reason for their action. But we absolutely must discuss it, explain the mismatch, and detail what we need from them moving forward. We’ll also need to be clear about the path they’ll be choosing if they don’t make the expected changes.
Everything I’ve worked with Craig and Kim on since mid 2021 has been according to the core values they held when they purchased their first business, and have now built all of their businesses around. Even with the exceptionally low voluntary turnover they’ve experience (I can only think of a handful of folks who have left their organizations for other jobs), there have been a few situations where we’ve had to part ways with team members. None of those, though, were decisions we made. In fact, every single one were based on decisions those team members made, continually, that did not align with or represent those clearly defined and consistently exemplified core values. In each case, the decisions were tough on a personal level. But to protect the culture they were working so hard to build, there was no room for compromising around those values.
Although I’ve mentioned Craig and Kim repeatedly through this process, I’m not about to suggest they’re perfect or that their organization is the only one I’ve seen with a strong foundation built on core values. What I will say though is, that as much as anyone I’ve ever interacted with, they’ve been willing to be completely transparent in every issue we’ve discussed and they immediately accept responsibility for any issue that arises across all of their organizations - and all of that has been based on the core values they discussed with me in our first conversation.
As impressed as I’ve been with the example Craig and Kim have set, they’re not superstars. They’ve just been incredibly consistent (some may even say fanatical) in modeling their core values, they’ve built those values into every possible aspect of what each of their team members do, and they’ve worked diligently to protect the culture they’ve built around those values at all cost. You could go as far as saying they’ve followed a simple framework for building their business on values. The beauty is that it’s something any other leader can apply in their organizations! And hopefully, the steps we’ve worked through here provide you with everything you’ll need to lay your own strong foundation for a business built on values.