Better Business, Better Life Newsletter – Issue 6

Here’s this week’s business tip, life hack & find of the week… And don’t forget the inspirational quote, which you can download as a wallpaper or lock screen for your phone. 

If you find great things that you’d like to share then feel free to email me for inclusion in one of my weekly newsletters.

There were some odd letters in the name so they had to be very creative. And next thing you know screensavers on our computers & posters on the wall & ✅ – job done 😀 

However, if you had walked around the company & asked anyone what the values were & what they meant for their job or the way we worked, no-one really cared! 

And then there’s the classic overused, broad values, such as – Communication, Respect, Integrity & Excellence. There’s more but I like these 4 for very good reason. 

I am not saying they are bad values to have – I think they’re almost essential, which means they really are just hygiene factors rather than core values. Plus they don’t engage your team & more importantly do they really differentiate you from competitors. 

And by the way, they were also the values of Enron! 

In EOS we do it a little differently. We use the work that Patrick Lencioni did & wrote about in BNR on how to make your values mean something.

He says that we first need to understand the different types of values: 

• Core values 
• Aspirational Values 
• Permission to play values 
• Accidental values 

I won’t go into each of these, you can read his NBR article for that. 

However he describes core values as, “The deeply ingrained principles that guide all of a company’s actions; they serve as its cultural cornerstones. Collins and Porras succinctly define core values as being inherent and sacrosanct; they can never be compromised, either for convenience or short- term economic gain. Core values often reflect the values of the company’s founders.” 

“Values initiatives have nothing to do with building consensus – they’re about imposing a set of fundamental, strategically sound beliefs on a broad group of people. “ 

In his article for NBR he also talks about being aggressively authentic, owning the process & weaving core values into everything you do.  

And that’s where I, as a professional EOS Implementer can help. Core values is one of the 8 questions that we answer to build a simple Vision & Traction that produces results for your business. 

If you’d like a copy of this article, then please contact me directly – debra@debrachantry-taylor.com 

The 6 tips that Inc.com suggested for bringing core values to life, which I also really like are: 

1. Focus on true values over word choices. While descriptor text explaining the importance of each core value can be changed over time as needed, real values should be immutable. ​
2. Only choose values you can back. You will no doubt think of more values than you can reasonably support. Choose only those you are willing to go to bat for, repeatedly, as a company.
3. Execute a rollout plan. Our team created a fun video explaining each core value. Both the act of making each video and the sharing of them helped people internalize them. 
4. Put them everywhere. We made mousepads, stickers, and more, and we distributed them over time to the team. People can’t act on core values they’ve forgotten. We’ve given monthly Core Value Awards for years now. 
5. Reframe management challenges in the context of values. By remembering to ask which core values should govern a particular difficult decision, the right answer materializes much more quickly. 
6. Teach your staff to think in context of values. By asking your team the same question – about how a given problem looks in context of your core values – you begin to provide the entire company with a problem-solving framework. 

Read the full Inc.com article here –