Since I had no direct authority over the team of behavior-based safety observers supporting me, earning and maintaining their trust was a crucial part of why they chose to remain engaged in the process when it would have been easier for each of them to focus solely on their actual job...
We’ve looked at how things can go really wrong without strong organizational values in place and how easy it can be to fall short of providing a picture of those values for everyone on our teams. We’ve also dug into how, even with specific values listed in various places throughout...
I started my first full time job just after turning fifteen years old and, as they say, the rest is history… But that history makes for a good story every now and then! In this case, the story won’t be all that funny but it’s certainly relevant why it’s so important for...
If we want to have any chance of removing the ambiguity that too frequently surrounds the values listed on our conference room walls and detailed through the first few pages of our employee handbooks we’d better be sharing specific examples of what those core values look like in the...
Since that large tech firm’s “staggering $75 million loss attributed to misaligned goals and unclear expectations” that I’ve referenced twice now could be a bit more than you or I will experience in our own roles, let’s make it a bit more personal and consider what...
Each time we kick off our Emerging Leader Development course, Cindy and I open with a slide detailing the importance of having and exemplifying core business values. In one of the first we ever provided on site for a large organization, Cindy shared her experience serving on the Maxwell...
How many times have you provided one of your team members with directions for completing a task you needed their help getting wrapped up by a certain time, only to get something far different from what you had hoped or miss the mark entirely? I’m sure we’ve all been on both ends of...
In March, April, and May of 1996, I received a tremendous amount of one-on-one training on how to operate the various pieces of equipment I was assigned to. Initially, someone else was responsible for swapping out the tooling and dies after each order I completed so the next part could be made....
I’ve never seen any organization’s executive team intentionally neglect living out their values, especially if they had a clear understanding of how much doing so could cost them! Whether it’s intentional or not, it happens more often than any of us likely realize. But how can...
As an organization, Enron had indeed identified their values:
Respect: We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness and arrogance don't belong here.
Integrity: We work with customers and prospects...
Before we dig into the challenges that come with “core values so generic that they could easily serve as fodder for a Dilbert cartoon,” and we’ll work through that in specific detail soon enough, we need to think about how that could ever be the case when “more than...
Over the course of my close to fifty years on this ball of mud, I’ve learned that the only people who truly like change are the ones who came up with the idea for the specific change that’s happening in any given moment. I can tolerate change when I have some level of control in how...
