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 called “9 Ways to Reinforce and Live Your Company’s Core Values Everyday” had this at the top of the list:
Live and lead by example. Leaders are always being watched. Setting core values, and then failing to abide by them, is worse than not establishing core values at all. A solid core values system is especially important in difficult times. It's rather easy to adhere to established desired behaviors when things are going well. When a company hits a bump in the road however, is when it's most important to stand by what you believe at your core.
Regardless of where you’re at in your organization, you’ve accepted some level of leadership responsibility; I can’t imagine you'd be on this journey with me otherwise. But before I challenge you to take a hard look at the example you’re providing anyone you’ve earned influence with, I want you to consider who really cares about your values… Spoiler alert: your team does! That said, the folks looking to you for leadership are no different than you and me.
Throughout What’s KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!), and a few times in Leading With A Clear Purpose, I shared this from a Harvard Business Review article called “Things They Do for Love”:
“Company leaders won’t be surprised that employee engagement—the extent to which workers commit to something or someone in their organizations—influences performance and retention. But they may be surprised by how much engagement matters. Increased commitment can lead to a 57% improvement in discretionary effort—that is, employees’ willingness to exceed duty’s call. That greater effort produces, on average, a 20% individual performance improvement and an 87% reduction in the desire to pull up stakes.”
Having shared these statistics with groups across the United States for close to two years now, I’ve seen more than a few wrinkled foreheads and scowls as folks wrap their heads around the idea of 57% additional discretionary effort and the 20% uptick in individual productivity. I counter those looks of disbelief with the same question I need you to answer right now, who have you worked the hardest for or been the most committed to over the course of your career? The supervisor who ruled with an iron fist or the one you knew had your best interests at heart in every way?
Since I know your answer, let’s think about how the behaviors of the one who earned our increased discretionary effort lined up with the core values of the organization we were a part of as well as our personal values. For me, it comes back to this simple statement in an article from Lesley University called “The Power of Company Core Values” referencing the importance of leading by example: “Seeing leaders adhere to the same principles they enforce is crucial for building trust and cohesion.”
During an orientation session I was leading more than a decade ago, my boss at the time was talking with a new team member we had just hired. This gentleman was coming into the company with an exceptional set of skills but he was new to the area so we knew it would take some time for the team to really welcome him. My boss told him, “You’ll build a thousand bridges before you’re ever known as a bridge builder. But if you (expletive) just one donkey, you’ll be forever known as a donkey (expletive-er).” Having recently left a very formal corporate environment, that statement nearly knocked me out of my chair - but it couldn’t have been more accurate. Trust is indeed earned over time and can be lost in an instant. That trust is the foundation for earning influence and engagement, which leads to increases in discretionary effort and individual productivity.
Since that’s something so critical for me and you, isn’t it fair to think our teams are looking for the same from us?
Earning Our Team’s Trust
Since I had no direct authority over the team of behavior-based safety observers who supported me for more than a decade, 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 requirements. To that end, I had to be just as careful about being credible with everyone else in the facility. During my close to twenty years in manufacturing, I can only remember two times where I went on the shop floor without safety glasses. In each case, I had my regular glasses on and forgot to swap them out. I can think of just one time that I didn’t stop to put on steel-toe shoes before going into a production area, and that was when I had been called in late one night to begin an accident investigation. I’m not making excuses for any of these, but sharing how intentional I was about setting the best example I could because I knew everyone would be watching me; I couldn’t expect anyone to take my input on how their behavior could put them at risk if I wasn’t following the company’s safety guidelines. As my former boss shared in his example, trust can be lost very quickly!
When it comes to our core values, we can have the clearest words and most articulate definitions in place but our teams will be paying far more attention to what we do than anything they see on paper or a single word we say about them in a company meeting.
 A few years ago, a friend (who happened to be one of the top performers in his organization) shared that the company’s executive team had recently implemented a policy defining how quickly team members were expected to respond to customers and clients. His rub was that he had several requests in to two folks on that executive team, all of which had gone well beyond the time defined in the policy, with no acknowledgement whatsoever. Near the end of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Daniel Pink cites research by Duncan Watts, a Columbia University sociologist and principal researcher for Microsoft Research, that stated “Email response time is the single best predictor of whether the employees are satisfied with their boss. The longer it takes for a boss to respond to their emails, the less satisfied people are with their leader.” If those executives were attempting to hold responsiveness up as one of the company’s core values, were they succeeding in exemplifying it to their team? Before you assume that their lack of response was an isolated instance, I’ll share something we learned (I believe from Mark Cole, CEO of Maxwell Leadership and closing keynote at our upcoming 2025 LeadershipLegacy Experience): “How we do one thing is how we do everything!” Would it come as a surprise to learn that my friend is no longer with that organization?
With the importance of earning and maintaining trust being fresh in our minds, let’s imagine teamwork is a core value of the company you’re a part of. Simple enough, huh? I can’t imagine an organization that wouldn’t want to strive for modeling world-class teamwork. If the executive team defines that as “building on trust” while developing business relationships with out-of-town partners that actively undermine long standing local relationships, especially when preaching to their employees and customers about enriching their community, what are the chances of team members beginning to question the character of those executives? You and I both know the answer…
Make no mistake, I’ve never suggested that leadership is easy. In fact, it’s damn hard! The phrase I’ve heard my friend Terry shared most from his time at West Point ties to consistently “choosing the harder right over the easier wrong.” When it comes to earning and maintaining buy-in from our team, exemplifying our values will indeed require choosing the harder right. If it’s not important enough to do so, are they really our values - or just words we’re hoping to impress people with? We’ll dig into that more soon. First though, let’s look at what we can expect to see if we fail to exemplify and uphold our stated values…
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 their daily routine; providing not just the written definition but a behavioral example of how each value applies in various scenarios. While the overall revenue has grown substantially since they bought their business, a business that had already been in place for three-quarters of a century, I don’t believe that’s the most remarkable part of the equation. Watching their team grow exponentially more cohesive as they work to live out those values has been nothing short of amazing!
Through my three-plus decades in the workforce, I’ve seen numerous organizations go through changes in management, some being companies that operated globally as well as a few that were locally owned and operated. With the exception of times where the person taking the reins had an existing presence in the company, changes in leadership almost directly tied to changes in personnel at multiple other levels. Despite that being the norm, that was not what Craig and Kim experienced with their new team. Quite honestly, the only thing I can attribute that surprising level of stability to through a complete transition of ownership (not just management) is how they worked to live up to their stated values.
Before we work through steps for doing this ourselves, we need to consider the alternative we’ll inevitably have to deal with if we don’t. Think back to how exemplifying our values helps earn trust with each of our team members. More importantly, think about how the inverse is just as true! While the best performers in our organizations may not push the clutch in entirely when they see us do something that doesn’t align with our core values, like preaching the importance of doing business locally but actively forming alliances with out-of-towners, it will most definitely catch their attention. And if they see more things over time that create doubt, we can expect to lose at least a portion of their discretionary effort; top performers will always fulfill what their job requires but they may be less willing to go above and beyond. Sooner or later, though, that disconnect between our behaviors and what we hold up as our values will push those who have high standards to look for another place to call home - and I don’t think we can blame them. Remember my friend who couldn’t get a response from the executives who expected him to reply within 48 hours? It took a few years but he started a business of his own when he could no longer follow people who weren’t willing to lead by example.
With that cautionary tail in mind, the next thing we need to get to work on is what we can do to build a team around a strong set of values that we ARE willing to live by…