What is the use of Core Values?
You know I’ve wondered that too. What is this idea of ”core values” or ” aligning your company with core values?”. What does it have to do with work anyway ?
To find my answer, I had to start at the beginning…”What is a company?” I mean isn’t a company an organization selling a product or service? That may be what Uncle Sam calls it, but I don’t think it answers the social question, or social definition of a company. A company is a group of people engaged in delivering something society values.
This definition becomes more and more obvious when you look at a company from inside out. A company really is a group of people. And we, like all other companies strive to reach statistical goals, similar to game stats: such as net income, revenues, gross margin and the list goes on and on. However we have no stats that measure feelings. Probably it is because feelings are more complicated to measure. It is much easier in our minds to calculate GNP versus GNH.
Imagine for a second that every company is a dormitory on a huge college campus. The college can easily measure which dormitory has the highest or lowest GPA . However, only the students know how happy they are in their dorm, or know what parties and people are like in other dorms, or how well they stack up what they have going on in their dorm environment versus what they wish they had in their environment. It would be easy to infer that the dorm with the highest gpa, the happiest students, and other measures you may care for, like athletic residents etc are on the top. It is easy to say that should be the goal to aspire , or, if we could go back to school, this would be the dorm we would be opting for on Freshman Orientation.
What would make this “dream dorm environment” possible? It is a fairly logical plan. If all the students got along, helped & supported each other, stood by each other, this productive “dream” dorm would be possible.. The biggest obstacle of this type of environment is infighting. As a matter of fact, the higher the percentage of infighting in a dorm, or lack of cohesion, the more discontent the members will be, which will lead to more stress and possibly a declining GPA; people will want to leave. So, the more members of a dorm that get along the better we will inherently be.
What defining “Core Values” does is highlight the values that are living in our dorm. It is how a returning alumni brother or sister will feel just at home at a homecoming event. It is not about grandiose statements of “We will be the best” but more a recognition of what has brought us here so far; what is the only thing which can connect the past successful values with the unknowns of the future. It ought to be what defines us as members of this organization.
Homespice’s Core Values
Here’s what we consider as Homespice’s Core Values:
- Deliver WOW customer service
- Be humble
- Simple over complex
- Do more with less
- Be open minded, creative and adventurous
- Do the right thing, don’t be evil
- Create Fun and maybe even a little weirdness
- Bring passion and be determined
- Pursue growth and learning
I hope people remember at least half of these and to use all of these as guidelines when facing obstacles, choices or hurdles.
A lot of these are shared by Google, Apple and Zappos. to be honest, I admire these companies and what they have done, not just for the market but what they are experimenting with in their culture and bringing about such awesome places to work. We hope we can only learn more from them.
February 5, 2010 at 4:25 pm |
Everyone should know right and wrong… In todays society right and wrong are often brushed aside by big company greed. Keep it simple and do the right thing. In the end your customers will thank you and return becuase they want to, Not because they are forced to.
Go HSD!
February 9, 2010 at 10:19 pm |
Thanks !
February 16, 2010 at 7:35 pm |
These core values are incredibly refreshing and inspiring. I have found that it is possible to have big company greed even in small business. I have witnessed a former employer raise cost, cut employees, under pay employees that were extremely loyal, hardworking, and long awaiting just to hire somebody who is willing to work for less than they deserve out of desperation. Then this money is used to install a new marble counter top to please his wife! I witnessed the deal for the marble and overheard the intentions while on a service call…and later that day was informed that my raise would be “in a couple more weeks” and we’re going to have a couple of “short weeks bear with me buddy” meaning cut from 40 to 20 hours…the raise never came, and I was replaced by a man who had a truck, would work for 8 dollars/ hr and had no clue how to make the highly detailed artistic products that I had spent so much time perfecting and learning. It really felt like a kick in the pants, especially since a truck was about to be possible for me, and I knew everything about the business, from production, to installment, sales, customer relations.. It really shows you where values are. Funny thing to notice here, in this business every single employee in the past five years was treated this way, no single artist ever got their raise, and all either quit or were fired when asking for more money. Funny thing is, more money would have been saved in the long run by keeping and paying a man that is good, makes less mistakes that cost money, and never having to train and retrain such a difficult skill!! Values truly support the higher good of a business.