How to Define Your Business Values
I'm Max Clark. This is 20 minutes Max, and, we've been working on updating mission vision values for the business. And if you've been through this and you have a secret, you know, please let me know your secret because it can be a challenge to actually get this and do this in a way that makes sense and and actually, you know, creates a good position and a good why but I'm gonna tell you what I've learned so far and what I've experienced on how to do this and and especially when you get into talking about values and I read something that you know values are things that you would be offended if somebody said you didn't have or if that you lacked or if your if your employee was missing so, you know, you can create you know, a value statement or create your core company values. And and by the way, you know, these should be relatively short. You know, you can't you can't have, you know, 20 items on on values.
Speaker 1:You know, what are your core values? And and these things if you're on EOS, you know, you know that the whole get it won't have the capacity to do it part of what scores scores your team is adherence to company values, you know, if you're on another system if you're following, you know, an OKR or Matt Mosheres method or things along those lines, you know, mission vision value still applies into these things where you need to have a guiding kind of compass or index to say given a decision process and a be you know, what behavior do we expect out? You know, do we expect you to, you know, are we or is our is our value in our core thing, you know, ownership or urgency or communication or attention to detail or perfection or, you know, perfection doesn't exist as we tell our children. You know, what is it where if if you were hiring a person and you had 2 candidates and one had it and one didn't, you know, that's your decision process. Or if you're evaluating, you know, your existing team and your staff and understanding is your team performing and and do they have what it is that you're looking for to push the company forward?
Speaker 1:You know, what is it that again you would you would be offended if if somebody claims or or called you out and said that this was lacking or didn't exist, you know, as as an aside, you know, I grew up in scouting. I'm an Eagle Scout. When you transition from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts or, you know, one of the now it's called scouting BSA. Right? Because not just for for boys.
Speaker 1:One of the things that, you know, we have to go through is, you know, Scott you know, things that have been ingrained in my life since I was, you know, 11 years old. So, you know, be prepared. Right? Scout motto. It's it's, it makes my my wife crazy because, you know, I've just I can't get away from it.
Speaker 1:You know? I'm sorry. I've got supplies, and I wanna be on, you know, early to places. And I wanna have a plan, and I wanna have stuff and I wanna have options and, you know, it's just it's just part of my nature, you know, like, again, how old am I? Turning 44.
Speaker 1:Turning 4. Yeah. I'm turning 44. So you're talking about 33 years my entire total life, you know, that was that was beat into me for my formative years. The other thing is the Scott law, you know, trustworthy loyal helpful friendly courteous kind obedient cheerful thrifty brave clean and reverent.
Speaker 1:I learned that 34 33 years ago and not a day goes by and I was situation I'm in that that doesn't you know reflect and kind of something just rattling around the back of my head. So from a value standpoint, I start from a place of that. You know, it's counter to my core nature to exist in a place where say if somebody were to accuse me of not being honest or having higher integrity or being kind or you know helpful like this is a core assault to like the fabric of who I am as a person, you know, it's it's jarring It's it's you know, it's like one of these things that stops you in your tracks, you know, and it's it's like it's an attack to your, you know, you're like, that's a it's a psychic attack on you as a person. You know, obviously, I'm not hiring people that are, you know, adhering to the scout law. I I do believe that there are certain levels of table stakes when you're going through and you're hiring.
Speaker 1:Like, I don't I'm not sure that necessarily having, you know, integrity as part of your value statement. You know, correct me if I'm wrong and tell me how I'm wrong with this, but if you're hiring people that don't have integrity, why are you hiring them? Do you need to actually have that spelled out in your company values that we operate with high integrity? This reminds me of Google. You know, Google for a long time was like, don't be evil.
Speaker 1:It's like if if you have to, like, have a statement to remind people not to be evil and and to and to explain to the world that you're not evil, you know, maybe you have to because you've got a disruptive technology and you're trying to, you know, counter fears and perception on the market. Okay fine don't be evil is great but the joke for a long time was like you know if you've got to have a statement says don't be evil like what the heck is going on in there so this is something that we're debating really actively right now and trying to figure out for us you know, what is our core, you know, and when I say core, I'm talking like 3 values that this becomes the rock and the bedrock that is is the way that the company, the business operates. And, you know, it's, you know, for me, it's pretty pretty easy to be like, hey, look. You know, we've got 12 values, and here they are, and it's a scout it's a scout law. Right?
Speaker 1:You know, you will be these things. I, again, I kind of I wonder about that a little bit in terms of, you know, maybe your value just is supposed to be, like, be a good person. You know? Are you a good person fundamentally? You know, I mean, you can wrap a lot of stuff into that.
Speaker 1:Are you actually explaining, like, what is a good person? A good person is somebody who's kind and helpful and courteous and trustworthy and and friendly. And, you know, I don't necessarily have to have brave, you know, with in that statement. And reverent doesn't really apply in in into that, you know, and and we want to, you know, we want to hire people that are, you know, they're striving to learn new things and to advance themselves and to, you know, so maybe that's actually just just talking out loud here like exploration and and discovery and in and learning when I think about what we do for our clients in our business those are really important things right you know technology is always changing you have to learn new things How is business evolving? How do you apply technology to business to solve business problems and to create business leverage and scale?
Speaker 1:Maybe that becomes, you know, part of the core, you know, core values. Our core values is that we are always learning and striving for more. That's that thing where can you apply this now to, you know, performance review? Oh, you know, you're either are you or are you not? And anyways, I I thought this was this was really compelling.
Speaker 1:It was it was one of the best examples I've seen of how to actually go about this process of documenting, you know, mission vision values, specifically values for your business and and creating that and having that idea of, you know, if you had a competitor or if you have a customer more importantly or if you have somebody inside of your company, what would offend you if it wasn't there? What would be you know, it's it's, you know, again, like I said, it's it's for me. There's no separation for me between what was ingrained with me with scouting and who I am as a person. Like, I can't really necessarily say, you know, what was scouting's impact on my life? It's just it's just is, you know, like, this is just part of who I am as a person.
Speaker 1:I go back to the whole, like, where our values aren't gonna be, like, we operate with high integrity because, I mean, again, I feel like that's just table stakes. You know? Like, if you're either if you don't have integrity, I mean, we've gotta be indexing that out. We've gotta be screening for that much earlier on in the hiring process and not saying, you know, as a value statement for the business, like, you have high integrity. Like, that's crazy to me to come to a place of, you know, of operating or having to actually make that that level of statement.
Speaker 1:So other things become values. And when we finalize these, I'll record another video and tell you what we ended up with. And, you know, hopefully hopefully, it helps you in some way. Talk to y'all soon.
