What are your core values?
Along with your vision and mission statements, do you have (and share) your company core values? It is worth thinking about having some as they can form the foundations of how you go about your day-to-day business dealings; almost a set of rules to guide you, your employees, your stakeholders and your customers.
Exploring this and establishing these values help align your company, ensuring that you reach your objectives and these set of beliefs can define how a team works together.
Sometimes it could be a list of single words e.g. honesty, integrity, accountability, respect, trust or simplicity. Or maybe phrases that encapsulate your values (see Google’s below). They should be specific to your organisation and, in some ways, may help distinguish you from your competition.
Once you have them in place, you should publish them so anyone associated with your business is aware of what your guiding principles are. You should consider how these values show up in your workplace because there is no point having them and not running your business in line with them.
As an example, here are Google’s core values or, as they call them: “Ten things we know to be true”.
- Focus on the user and all else will follow.
- It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
- Fast is better than slow.
- Democracy on the web works.
- You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
- You can make money without doing evil.
- There’s always more information out there.
- The need for information crosses all borders.
- You can be serious without a suit.
- Great just isn’t good enough.
His experience and knowledge of 20 years being employed by someone else and to date, working with 100s of business owners, gives him the confidence and ability to offer business advice, coaching and training when given the opportunity to do so.
Having experienced the trials and tribulations that face a small business on that entrepreneurial journey, he is passionate about making sure businesses don't make the same mistakes that he made en route! He is a big believer in collaboration and encourages businesses to work together to grow their businesses; as well as offering help and support to each other for mutual gain.
