From the desk of Justin Flavel
Deep diving on values and purpose to define how we engage with our world and shape how and what we deliver.
After writing my last article on 2020 Business Resolutions, I walked the talk and met with my mentor and sounding board to discuss my own business ideas. A scheduled meeting for three hours quickly turns into six when you start talking about what you want to achieve and why.
During the session I outlined my plan for 2020; the question continually raised by my mentor was, “Why? Let’s dive deeper on this.”
At first, it wasn’t as clear to me why this line of questioning was being pursued until the very end of our session – VALUES AND PURPOSE.
The values and purpose that we have as individuals or as business owners define how we engage with our team, our customers and other key stakeholders. It defines what we deliver and how we do it.
I find this quite challenging to articulate but, when you take money off the table, it becomes clearer.
We achieved that clarity by defining my purpose – a concise statement that effectively conveyed out loud what it is that I stand for.
Then it came down to values where we started with a copious wish list which we whittled down to three or four core principles. Of course, values remain motherhood statements unless they can be enacted and adopted by people other than myself. In order to explain how my values translate to my business, we talked about getting my team involved and letting them drive the definition of value by creating four sub-values, in this case, with clear definitions. Each definition then gives examples of what the value encourages and what it discourages.
Once these are rounded out and clearly articulated in my business, in collaboration with my team, we plan to create our very own cultural charter to define our work culture. This will create accountability across our team and will dovetail into our review process and, ultimately, overall performance.
The long term thinking on doing all of this is to create positive reinforcement around our cultural requirements, just like many professional sporting teams do.
Entrepreneur, investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban said, “The sport of business is the ultimate competition. It’s 7 × 24 × 365. Everyone has got the will to win; it’s only those with the will to prepare that do win.” Taking a page from his book How to Win at the Sport of Business, by planning around our own values, purpose and culture, we’re building a team that is engaged and that is geared to outperform.