Laying a Foundation on Values: Simple Practices

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,...

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A Reputation Built on Consistency, Over Time…

To build a reputation that drives results, one that each person who ever hears about us will connect with our core values, being intentional in our approach to providing world-class service and being sure to detail why we’re willing to do it is part of our responsibility as leaders. But...

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A Reputation for Serving, Based on Our Values

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...

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Modeling Our Values, and Explaining Why

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...

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A Clear-Eyed Look

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...

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Perpetuating the Cycle

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...

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A Reputation That Drives Results

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...

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What They See IS What They Get

So who ultimately cares about the core values we model personally or in our organizations? Everyone does! The reputation of our company is indeed built on the values we exemplify day in and day out. For far too many individuals and businesses, the answer to that third question Jeff Henderson...

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What ARE You Known For?

An article called “Workplace culture and its impact on corporate reputation” from a UK-based group Igniyte, an organization dedicated to managing corporate reputations, opened with this:

A company’s reputation is all about how other people view the brand. Their perception...

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Who Ultimately Cares About Your Values?

As heavy as the weight can often be in any leadership role, we can’t lose sight of exactly who, ultimately, cares about the core values of our organization: Everyone! How we’re known, up close and from a distance, all boils down to whether or not we’ve been willing to build...

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Momentum Builds Into an “Overnight Success”

If Cindy and I had only been measuring our accomplishments by reviewing our bank statements and retirement account balances, making some of the decisions we’ve been faced with over the last fifteen years would have been substantially harder. Reflecting on even the smallest personal or...

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Sustaining the Harder Right Requires Reflection

I opened Leading With A Clear Purpose with a story detailing the conversation I had with a lifelong friend who shared how one of his businesses no longer provided him with fulfillment while his other, albeit much more physically demanding, kept his heart full all the time. The business that was...

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