Back to Basics: Core Values (2 of 4)

How many people do you know that are unhappy in their jobs, unhappy with their current employer, unhappy with their leadership team, and/or looking for another job?  The recent percentages will astound you. 

ü 60% of workers are still unhappy (via The Daily Ticker).

ü Only 42% of new managers believe they understand how to succeed at their jobs (via CNN Money).

ü 40% of all workers are not motivated (via Marketing Charts).

Over the past few years, team members have experienced reduction of staff, budgets slashed, and seen their workload increase dramatically (with very little or no recognition).  Numerous individuals have contacted me this year to inquire about looking for a new job due to frustration with their current employers. There is clearly an issue with leadership in the American workplace.

It is time for companies to get their act together and get back to basics.  Establishing the company Vision is where to start so team members understand why the company is in existence.  Next, it is up to the leadership team to define the how.  This is where Core Values come into play.

Core Values are the foundation of the company and how it will conduct business on a daily basis.  They define the culture, direction, and the strategy to fulfill the company Vision.  Without established Core Values, decisions are made based upon emotions, circumstances, and social pressures rather than on what the company really stands for. 

All team members, including leadership, must also be aware of their own personal Core Values and determine if they align with the company’s Core Values.  When personal Core Values and company Core Values are out of alignment, cracks in the company foundation will eventually show. 

When establishing company Core Values, keep these questions in mind:

ü Are you willing to fire your top sales team member to uphold Core Values?

ü Are you willing to turn away a client to uphold a Core Value?

ü Are you willing to accept smaller margins to uphold core values?

ü Are you willing to publish your Core Values for all to see?

If answered “no” to any of these questions, then there is more work to do.

Having established Core Values are necessary to develop strategies and a culture that support the company Vision.  They need to be part of everything that the company engages from hiring team members and partnering with vendors to determining what clients the company will work with, and everything in between. 

Here are examples of just a few Core Values that are published on company websites:

ü Zappos:  “Embrace and drive change”, “Create fun and a little weirdness”, “Do more with less”, etc.

ü Whole Foods:  “Supporting team member excellence and happiness”, “Caring about our communities and our environments”, Creating ongoing win-win partnerships with our suppliers”, etc.

ü Tyson:  “We strive to be a company of diverse people”, “We serve as stewards of the animals, land, and environment entrusted to us”, “We strive to operate with integrity and trust in all we do”, etc.

Take a look at these companies.  Each company is very successful, created a distinct culture, keeps a satisfied customer base, and has happy team members.  

Without established Core Values, the company is a ship lost at sea drifting any direction the wind blows.  Is that really any way to run a business?  It is time to get back to basics and establish the company Core Values.  The choice is yours.

"Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose." ~Edward de Bono

Choices by Darren Hardy

We all come into this world the same: naked, scared and ignorant. After that grand entrance, the life we end up with is simply an accumulation of all the choices we make. Our choices can be our best friend or our worst enemy. They can deliver us to our goals or send us orbiting into a galaxy far, far away.

Think about it. Everything in your life exists because you first made a choice about something. Choices are at the root of every one of your results. Each choice starts a behavior that, over time, becomes a habit. Choose poorly, and you just might find yourself back at the drawing board, forced to make new, often harder choices. Don’t choose at all, and you’ve made the choice to be the passive receiver of whatever comes your way.

In essence, you make your choices, and then your choices make you. Every decision, no matter how slight, alters the trajectory of your life—whether or not to go to college, who to marry, to have that last drink before you drive, to indulge in gossip or stay silent, to make one more prospecting call or call it a day, to say I love you or not. Every choice has an impact on the Compound Effect of your life.

This chapter is about becoming aware of and making choices that support the expansion of your life. Sounds complicated, but you’ll be amazed by its simplicity. No longer will 99 percent of your choices be unconscious. No more will most of your daily routines and traditions come as a reaction to your programming. You’ll ask yourself (and be able to answer), “How many of my behaviors have I not ‘voted on’? What am I doing that I didn’t consciously choose to do, yet continue to do every day?”

By employing the same idiot-proof strategies I’ve used to catapult my own life and career, strengthened by the Compound Effect, you’ll be able to loosen the mysterious grip of the things that are unwinding your life and pulling you in the wrong direction. You’ll be able to hit the pause button before stumbling into idiot territory. You’ll experience the ease of making decisions that lead to behaviors and habits that support you, every time.

Your biggest challenge isn’t that you’ve intentionally been making bad choices. Heck, that would be easy to fix. Your biggest challenge is that you’ve been sleepwalking through your choices. Half the time, you’re not even aware you’re making them! Our choices are often shaped by our culture and upbringing. They can be so entwined in our routine behaviors and habits that they seem beyond our control. For instance, have you ever been going about your business, enjoying your life, when all of sudden you made a stupid choice or series of small choices that ultimately sabotaged your hard work and momentum, all for no apparent reason? You didn’t intend to sabotage yourself, but by not thinking about your decisions—weighing the risks and potential outcomes—you found yourself facing unintended consequences. Nobody intends to become obese, go through bankruptcy, or get a divorce, but often (if not always) those consequences are the result of a series of small, poor choices.

Elephants Don’t Bite

Have you ever been bitten by an elephant? How about a mosquito? It’s the little things in life that will bite you. Occasionally, we see big mistakes threaten to destroy a career or reputation in an instant—the famous comedian who rants racial slurs during a stand-up routine, the drunken anti-Semitic antics of a once- celebrated humanitarian, the anti-gay-rights senator caught soliciting gay sex in a restroom, the admired female tennis player who uncharacteristically threatens an official with a tirade of expletives. Clearly, these types of poor choices have major repercussions. But even if you’ve pulled such a whopper in your past, it’s not extraordinary massive steps backward or the tragic single moments that we’re concerned with here.

For most of us, it’s the frequent, small and seemingly inconsequential choices that are of grave concern. I’m

talking about the decisions you think don’t make any difference at all. It’s the little things that inevitably and predictably derail your success. Whether they’re bone-headed maneuvers, no-biggie behaviors, or are disguised as positive choices (those are especially insidious), these seemingly insignificant decisions can completely throw you off course because you’re not mindful of them. You get overwhelmed, space out and become unaware of the little actions that take you way off course. The Compound Effect works, all right. It always works, remember? But in this case it works against you because you’re sleepwalking.

For instance, you inhale a soda and bag of potato chips and suddenly realize only after you polished off the last chip that you blew an entire day of healthy eating—and you weren’t even hungry. You get caught up and lose two hours watching mindless TV—scratch that, let’s give you some credit and make it an educational documentary—before realizing you spaced on preparing for an important presentation to land a valuable client. You blurt out a knee-jerk lie to a loved one for no good reason, when the truth would have worked just fine. What’s going on?

You’ve allowed yourself to make a choice without thinking. And as long as you’re making choices unconsciously, you can’t consciously choose to change that ineffective behavior and turn it into productive habits. It’s time to WAKE UP and make empowering choices.

Darren Hardy is the publisher of SUCCESS magazine and can be found at http://www.darrenhardy.com/