When someone is called an “ACE” in my company, it’s more than just a fleeting comment or a gratuitous pat on the back. ACE is the acronym for our values: Attitude, Commitment and Excellence. It’s also the name of a program we’ve put in place to make those values come alive.
We were able to uncover, institute and leverage our company values by following the advice of business guru Jim Collins [who will be speaking at the 2009 EO Arizona University!]. Jim once described the following exercise as a way to discover company values:
As the leader of your business, ask all of your employees to pretend that Martians are coming to visit, and they want to learn all about your company. Here’s the trick: Employees can’t use words (unless they speak Martian!) to describe your company. Instead, they must point out three employees that the visitors will observe. These employees must be employees who best exemplify your company’s values. Once the employees have identified their three “company ambassadors,” ask them to use three words to describe why they picked those employees.
This self-discovery activity helped my company uncover our core values. After the exercise ended, we learned that our business centered around three principles: Attitude, Commitment and Excellence. Specifically, attitudes that inspire others and convey excitement about the company; a commitment to clients, one another and our community; and professional excellence.
We were gratified to learn that employees were nearly unanimous in their agreement with these values. However, getting clarity around the values was just the first step. In order for us to leverage our newfound knowledge, we had to the separate values into three operating principles.
In my company, there are three principles that, along with our values, guide our decisions. These are: (1) to dominant the local market by offering a unique combination of technical training and consulting; (2) to be exceptional by hiring great people and landing them great work; (3) and to be different in a way that matters to our customers.
Like anything we care about, we must continually reinforce our commitment to our principles. We do this with banners in the office and through frequent discussions of how our values have been demonstrated by various employees. By pointing out employees “living the values,” we are reinforcing the belief that our values are real and that they underline how we treat our customers and each other.
We’ve put tremendous energy into developing this program, and the results speak for themselves: revenues have since exceeded projections, we have seen an increase in satisfied customers and there has been minimal employee turnover. Defining and adopting our company values has been one of the best decisions I've ever made as an entrepreneur.
By letting my employees and customers know what we stand for, we will continue to reap greater rewards than we ever imagined possible.