5. Building a Strong Foundation for Your Team with Core Values
Do I really need core values as a small business owner?
The answer is YES. You absolutely do.
Especially if you’re planning on hiring employees.
Our core values set the stage for the way we do business. They define the culture of the companies we’re building and the teams we’re growing.
They impact everything from who we hire to how we communicate, the way we make decisions to how we allocate resources, and so much more.
They’re part of every single thing we do – or choose not to do – in business.
This is one of my favorite topics of conversation when it comes to building highly successful and impactful teams and I think you’re going to love it, too.
I share a short story about puzzles and some helpful insights on why values are the single most important part of your HR strategy in business.
We’ll have some laughs, learn some new ways of thinking about values, and you’ll even get a short exercise to help you craft your values if you don’t have any yet.
This episode is chock full and I can’t wait for you to dive in!
In this episode, you’ll learn:
What are core values + why they’re important
How to give more than just lip service to your values
A simple exercise to identify + define your values
Mentioned in This Episode:
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Transcript Episode 5 - Build A Strong Foundation for Your Team with Core Values
Ashley Cox 0:04
Welcome to episode five of The Impact Ripple podcast. Your go to source for hiring and leadership made simple, doable and fun for visionary female business owners. I'm your host, Ashley Cox, author, certified HR expert and founder of Sprout HR. I believe that you don't have to change who you are to be a great leader, because you already are one. So join me as we kiss uncertainty and overwhelm goodbye, and say hello to the tools and support you need to grow a profitable, sustainable, impactful team with more confidence and ease.
Ashley Cox 0:43
On today's episode, we're talking about one of my all time favorite, and most important topics, core values. Now, I know that a lot of folks talk about this topic, but I'm going to come at it from a little bit of a different angle today, the HR angle, we'll discuss what core values are, why they're important from a human resources perspective, how to give more than just lip service to your values and put them into actual, practical, everyday use. And we'll end our conversation with a simple exercise to help you identify and define your core values that you can do in just 30 minutes.
Ashley Cox 1:24
Now, I'd like to start with a short story about values. And it begins at my dining room table, where my husband and I were working on a puzzle during the winter this past year. To be completely honest, I am not a huge puzzler. So it was mostly him working on the puzzle, and me dancing to songs on the radio and drinking cocktails. Love his heart and how he puts up with me, in all my shenanigans, I have no idea. But he's a good one. But it got me thinking about how hiring and leading a team is a lot like putting together a puzzle. Because the most important part of the whole puzzling process is making sure that you have a strong and stable foundation on which to build your puzzle. Because if you don't, all the blood, sweat and tears and time that you put into building your puzzle will come crumbling down.
Ashley Cox 2:21
And the same thing is true when it comes to building teams, you have to start with a strong foundation, which you've probably guessed, I'm gonna say are your company's core values. Your values are the strong and stable foundation upon which you will build your team. And without them, it can all come crumbling down. And we don't want that. So let's talk about core values today. So in the context of business, core values are a set of fundamental beliefs, ideals or practices that inform how team members conduct themselves, how you allocate money and resources to various projects, how you make important decisions and grow your business and team.
Ashley Cox 3:08
Simply put, core values are the way we do business together. And when it comes to growing and leading a team, they are incredibly important. They help us hire the right people. set clear expectations and standards, provide structure for our business, create better communication, and they ensure that our team is able to work together effectively. When our team members know and live by our company's core values, they also make better, more aligned decisions without having to rely on you to call all the shots.
Ashley Cox 3:51
In the past couple of years, we've seen a big shift in what employees are finding important in the workplace. And I just talked about this a little bit on Episode Four where we were talking about the overwhelm of hiring. And with the aftermath of the pandemic and heightened activism around social and racial justice causes, we're witnessing what's being called the rise of the belief driven employee. I love that phrase. I think that's so powerful. And the power balance has shifted to employees. And as employers, we have to take note of and understand what employees truly want in order to attract and keep the best people.
Ashley Cox 4:38
These belief driven employees are putting a much stronger emphasis on values alignment, surprise, surprise, they had time to sit around at home during the pandemic thinking about their life. I got a little esoteric here right. I thought what's important to me what matters. Oh my gosh, that's not been available to me. And a 2021 study by the Edelman Trust Barometer found that in the employees who were surveyed, about leaving their current job, 59% of them stated they were looking for a better fit with their personal values. Things like a job that's more personally fulfilling. They want to go where they feel more valued. They want continuous learning opportunities and more of those. They want organizations and companies that are more socially engaged, and they want a more inclusive culture.
Ashley Cox 5:43
The good news is that these are all things that are within our control, especially as small businesses, we can intentionally and purposefully determine what our values are, and then share them with the world and with potential future employees, to connect with them, to attract them, to show them who we are. And what we stand for.
Ashley Cox 6:08
Hiring people isn't just about what they can do for us, but also what we can provide for them. As my coach Christine likes to say, all the time, what's generative, and generative being an equal give and take you give something, I give something, you get something, I get something. And part of that experience is the culture that we create through our core values.
Ashley Cox 6:37
Now, here's the kicker, you're gonna have a company culture, and a set of fundamental beliefs and values, whether you want them or not, culture will happen to you, my friend, you can choose to either have a culture by default, or a culture by design. And a culture by design starts with getting clear on your core values, and making them part of every fiber of your business. So how do you give more than just lip service to your values? I'm so glad you asked. I'd love to tell you.
Ashley Cox 7:20
There are a lot of companies out there that have core values. In fact, most of them do, and especially fortune 500 companies. But just because a company has a set of core values listed on their website, or on shiny plaques in their lobby, doesn't mean they actually use or live by those values. What does it look like when a company isn't living their values? Let me give you a few examples. A company that says they value work life balance, but then expect their employees to answer emails and phone calls all weekend. That's not living their value. A company that probably claims they're a family first company, but then they offer no paid leave for new parents. That's not living their value. Or a company that promotes diversity as a core value, but looks the other way when a senior leader continues to make racist or ableist comments in meetings. That's not living their core value. And maybe you've seen some of these or been in companies where they said one thing and did something different. I have. And it can be pretty easy to spot when a company isn't living in alignment with their values. So what does it look like to live in accordance with the values you set?
Ashley Cox 8:53
Well, first, it looks like choosing values that you truly believe in and are committed to every single day of the week and twice on Sunday. Because if you're going to choose core values, and you're going to put them on your website, you're going to claim this is what we believe this is who we are, this is how we behave, or act or show up in this world. Then you better make sure that they're ones that you can fully commit to. Because the next thing I'm going to tell you is that you should share them everywhere.
Ashley Cox 9:28
People always ask me how to hire the best people, where to find people, and where they need to start. One of the very first things I always talk about is that you have to start with your values. And you have to share those values everywhere. That you should always be recruiting amazing people through the things that you're sharing about your company. Your values should be in your job descriptions and advertisements when hiring. They should be on your company website and in your social media post. They should be talked about during meetings, when setting individual and company goals. And anytime you're working on a new project, they should be part of setting clear expectations with your team. And having hard conversations when you need to address performance or behavioral issues with your employees.
Ashley Cox 10:20
Your core values should lead every conversation not be an afterthought.
Ashley Cox 10:28
Here at Sprout HR, our values are very important to us. Because if I'm going to tell you to do this thing, I'm going to walk the walk myself, right. And they're truly the lifeblood of everything we do. When we get off track, when we start to feel like, Ah, I don't know what decision to make, I don't I don't know where we're going with this, we always come back to our values and we say, okay, what are our values say? It's like a guiding light, it helps us get back on track, which is so important. So if you want to take a peek at our core values for a little bit of inspiration, you can find them on our website at Sprout hr.co forward slash about.
Ashley Cox 11:15
Okay, let's make sure that you get the right values in place for your business and team. I have a quick exercise for you that you can do in just 30 minutes, because I know you're busy. But this is really important. So I do encourage you to carve out the time and do this this week. Here's what you're going to need for this exercise. It's super simple three things, sticky notes, a marker, and a big blank wall. You can also do this on a tabletop if you want.
Ashley Cox 11:46
Step number one, set a timer for 10 minutes for your values brainstorm session. And during this brainstorm session, during these 10 minutes, I want you to write down all the values that come to mind on your sticky notes with one value per note. So if one of your values for example, is integrity, that's going to go on one sticky note. If another value is inclusiveness, that's going to go on a different sticky note.
Ashley Cox 12:16
Now, at the end of this 10 minutes, step number two, I want you to set a timer for two minutes, and put your sticky notes up on your big blank wall. And I want you to look at these and combine any values that are the same or similar, they kind of have the same vibe going on. And take note because if you wrote something down more than once, it's a pretty good indication of how important that value is to you.
Ashley Cox 12:45
Step three, I want you to imagine that I have now given you five $1,000 bills. I know, I really wish I could give you that, but I can't. So we're going to pretend, imagine you have five $1,000 bills. And you can use $1,000 to purchase one value, which means that you're going to be allowed to buy five values for your business with the money that I've given you. So again, if integrity is a value that you want to buy, you're gonna slap your $1,000 bill up there and say, Okay, I'm buying integrity. But maybe you don't want to buy honesty, because honesty is very similar to integrity. So you don't you don't spend your money on that value. I found that this really works surprisingly well. Because when we assign a monetary value to our core values, it can really help bring up the most important ones to the surface more quickly. Now, don't think too hard on this, just make your selections, make your payments, and identify the five core values that you want for your business.
Ashley Cox 13:57
Okay, now step number four, it's time to define them. So in step four, I want you to list out your five core values on a sheet of paper and a word or a Google Doc, wherever you like to, you know, keep things and set a timer for 15 minutes. So that you can write what each value represents to you. In this instance, I really like to use and prefer we believe statements, because it can create a sense of camaraderie and teamwork. And there's more than just me in this, you know, even if you're rocking it solo right now. That's okay. We believe we believe that integrity is important because XYZ we keep our word, we do what we say we're going to do. We do the right thing when no one's looking. These are good examples of integrity, right? But I don't want you to skip number four because this is the most important step. And that's because we can slap a bunch of words up on our website, but they mean means something totally different to me than they do to you. So make sure that you're clear in your definitions. So when someone reads them, they can identify, yes, our values align, or no, actually, they really don't.
Ashley Cox 15:20
That's it. That's all there is to this whole exercise. So try not to overthink it, because you likely have a strong sense of what's important to you, and what's important in your business. And the good news is, is that our values aren't meant to be stagnant. We shouldn't create them once and never change them for 50 years. They're meant to grow and evolve with us as our businesses grow and evolve. And you can easily do this exercise as many times as you want. Now, I do encourage you to maintain some semblance of consistency. But you know, as you add new team members, if if you want to do a really great team building exercise, this is a wonderful one, to get everybody involved in what's important to us, what matters to us who do we want to be individually and collectively, in this company. And you can also do this exercise if you already have a team of employees. And in fact, I encourage that this is something that we do a lot with our with our one on one clients, because it's a powerful exercise, to bring the team together, and to get buy in and loyalty and support and engagement. Those are all good things.
Ashley Cox 16:35
Now, I do want to make one cautionary statement. Because, you know, we're talking about values and teams, teams can sometimes be a little more nebulous, I've learned in the small business world. You know, a lot of times we hear people refer to teams, and they have a team of contractors, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I am not here to debate that at all. What I am here to do is help protect you and keep you safe, and make sure that your business is protected. So this is not an exercise that I would recommend you doing with a team of contractors. This is because of a couple of things. Number one, they are their own business entities, they should be doing their own values exercise, they should be deciding you know who they are in this world and how they want to show up and all of those things on their own. Now, you may have shared or similar values. And that's absolutely important. I think when choosing the contractors you want to work with, it's absolutely 100% something that we do at Sprott HR, when we are hiring contractors, but doing an exercise like this with contractors can muddy the waters between what the IRS and the Department of Labor, consider to be an employee relationship, or a contractor relationship. And we'll talk a little bit more about this in a future episode. But we just don't want you to be in hot water. Okay. So don't do this exercise with your contractors, and you will be golden.
Ashley Cox 18:11
Okay, so for more on the topic of values, I would love to invite you to check out our blog post why you should start with your values when hiring. It's a really good one. And it builds on what we've talked about here today. So you can either search for that on our blog at Sprout hr.co forward slash blog, or you can just click the link to the post in our show notes.
Ashley Cox 18:37
All right, let's wrap up this episode with our final segment. Imagine the impact where we get to envision what it could look like for you to take action today. What if you created a company culture where every team member felt seen, valued and respected, where they knew exactly what was expected of them and others, where your team members felt confident making decisions on their own, because you were clear about what it looks like to make decisions through the scope of your values. Imagine the impact that a radically different company culture could have on you, your team members, your business, your community and the world.
Ashley Cox 19:24
If you love this episode, as much as I loved giving it, we'd be so grateful if you take a moment to rate and review the show and your favorite podcast app. This really helps us reach more leaders just like you who need to hear the message that our values are important. And this is the foundation upon which we grow and lead our teams. Thank you so much for joining me today on the impact rebel podcast. It's an honor to be here with and for you on your leadership journey.
