How Values Impact “Know, Like, & Trust” Relationships

Let’s set any leadership responsibility we hold to the side briefly and think about how much an organization’s values - specifically, how each team member does or does not uphold those values - impacts our desire to do business with them. As regular Joe’s, clients or even just members of the communi...

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Who Else Cares About Your Values?

A great team will definitely care about the core values we exemplify as we build the foundation for our organization, but that’s not where the importance of those values stops. How leaders, as well as each team member in an organization, live out those values will impact business relationships with ...

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Great Values Show Up in Everything We Do

Throughout Leading With A Clear Purpose, I emphasized how important it is for everyone in a leadership role to understand exactly why they do what they do, to share a message with our teams detailing why our organization exists, and to help each team member understand their own purpose while connect...

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Great Teams Are Built On Great Values

For the casual observer, it could appear as though the results each of the businesses Craig and Kim have acquired are the primary reasons so many solid candidates have applied to join their team. After all, who doesn’t want to be part of a winning team? Where I’d challenge that casual observer, thou...

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Great Results Come From Great Teams

Having looked at how much folks within our organizations need us to exemplify what we’re holding up as core values and detailing how unlikely we are to build a great team without those values being a legitimate part of what we’re doing on a daily basis, let’s dig into some practical steps each of us...

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The Best Talent Doesn’t Equal the Best Team

Whether it’s because we’ve compromised our values, losing credibility with some of the best folks who had previously carried our team, or we simply didn’t put enough intentional effort into rallying everyone around a clearly articulated set of core values, the highest performers in our organizations...

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No Good Reason for Compromising Our Values

I’ll say it again: even the most talented individuals rarely form a great team without clear values serving as the foundation. For more than two decades, I’ve heard John Maxwell emphasize how “everything rises and falls on leadership.” When it comes to building a foundation on those values, those of...

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Can You Build a Great Team Without Values?

As I opened the second section of Leading With A Clear Purpose, I shared the story of my fondest Major League Baseball memory, the 2004 American League Championship Series where the Boston Red Sox narrowly avoided being swept and came back to win four straight games against the New York Yankees befo...

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If We Fail to Lead by Example…

As I shared what I’ve observed personally over the last several years for what I believe is a textbook example of using core values as a foundation for an organization, I mentioned how I’ve seen Craig and Kim work to ensure every member of their team understands exactly what each value looks like in...

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Who Really Cares About Your Values? Your Team Does!

Let’s assume your organization has done a solid job of listing what your values mean and you’ve worked to remove all possible ambiguity by connecting those values to the daily activities of each team member, then what? As leaders, the ball most definitely remains in our court.

An Inc.com article ca...

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A Part of Every Conversation

Make no mistake, providing behavioral examples that define our core values doesn’t have to be through some elaborate presentation for the world to see, or even done with a nifty slideshow in small groups. It’s far more important that we exemplify the appropriate behaviors personally and that we reco...

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Make It About Values, Not Us…

Highlighting our own behavior to provide examples that define our values certainly helps us build those values into the conversations we have with our teams, but don’t mistake this as a suggestion to be boastful about how amazing we are; it’s anything but that! 

Not long after starting our business...

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