How to Create a Team Driven by Core Values
As leaders, we seek to create high-performing teams. Meaning teams that drive results. Teams that deliver on the company mission. Teams that create meaning for each of its team members.
While all leaders aim for those lofty goals, many don’t know where to start. Also, teams who are failing to deliver results often look for the latest hacks and magic tonic to jump-start their success. Tactics are great and can make a difference, but long-term results require a firm set of values that anchor the team during times of uncertainty while also providing an inspiring North Star to drive the team forward.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best teams first look inward to define what matters most—their values, before focusing on how they build and execute their strategic plan, launch the latest marketing campaign, and kick-off a new recruitment campaign to improve the caliber of talent in the organization.
Enough of the “why.” Let’s get to the “how to.” If you’ve read this far, you understand the benefit of values, but need a few tips to get started. I have personally worked with many teams to help them become more values-centric and the tips below come directly from our work. I hope that you also find them useful. Please let me know what’s working and what’s not.
How to Make Your Team Values-Centric
Below are three tips you can use to help your team become more values-centric.
Tip #1: Share Your Professional Values
One simple way to start making values a part of your team is to facilitate a conversation around personal or professional values. In an upcoming team meeting, kick-off a conversation where each person gets 10 minutes to share their most important personal or professional value. In addition to sharing their most important value, make sure each person also explains the source of the value (e.g. childhood, personal experience), why it’s important to them, and how it shows up for them at work. Be sure that there is a “no judgment zone” as people share their values. Also, teams tend to say “me too” after one person shares, so be sure to encourage diversity of thought and values.
Sharing values is great starting point to help your team understand what values are, where they come from, and how they impact the way we show up in our work lives. As a bonus, this can be a fun team bonding exercise to incorporate into an offsite or team dinner. I have introduced this question in the CEO groups that I lead to create greater understanding of and connection between group members as well as to ensure alignment between their business goals and what matters most to each of them.
Tip #2: Define Team Values
The highest-performing teams have well defined values that govern how team members interact with each other, make decisions, and execute the mission and objectives of the company.
Get started by holding a meeting, as part of an offsite or strategy meeting, to identify your team’s core values. As you do, be sure to consider the following:
Define values that both represent the current state of your team and also act as an aspirational guide post
Ensure team values don’t contradict company values
Be sure to go beyond merely defining values and be explicit in stating what each value looks like in practice
Integrate values into ongoing team activities; performance reviews, one-on-one coaching meetings, strategic planning sessions, and more
Revisit values over time to adjust them based on changes to the company goals, mission, and strategy
Tip #3: Reinforce Values in Team Meetings
Values need to stay front and center and not just sit on a wall, company intranet site, or Slack channel. Some of the best performing companies I work with keep their values top of mind by incorporating them into daily or weekly team meetings. At the start of each meeting, team members are encouraged to celebrate one or more of their colleagues for demonstrating one of the core values. For example, a colleague might say, “I want to acknowledge Sara for really living up to our ‘Customers First’ value in providing a full refund to an unhappy customer, even though the company policy didn’t necessarily call for it” or “I want to recognize Mike for pointing out that our new pricing changes didn’t include information about how and why they changed—this demonstrated our core value of 'Transparency In Action'.”
Be sure to let me know if you have any questions as you start to create a more values-centric team.
Next Steps: Create a Values-Centric Team or Company
If you are a leader looking to transform your team to be more focused on core values, schedule a call to discuss how.
Did You Like This Post?
If you found this helpful, check out my Savage Saturdays newsletter.
2,000+ leaders read practical tips to create greater career fulfillment and to amplify their impact at work: Sign-Up for Savage Saturdays
No hacks. No flexes. No fluff. Just insight and support in a 3 ½ minute read or less.