Values, Our Guiding Principles

00:00 hi there and welcome to the business growth factor my name is Lyndon Smith and I'm joined today by Joshua Leyenhorst and we're going to be having conversations about building better businesses today's episode we're going to be discuss uh discussing core values and why having core values are important in your business I'm gonna hand over to Josh uh you want to maybe just a quick intro on who you are your business what you do sure yeah uh my name is Josh linhorst and uh I'm the founder at Bas Point accounting finance and so we just offer accounting and uh virtual CFO solutions

00:34 for uh businesses primarily in Canada here so um so yeah let's talk values this is uh is a bit of an area that uh you work with um a fair amount and what you do Lindon and so um yeah maybe maybe as a good starting point as we discuss this topic H can you maybe like Define what values are before we start going down the the details of of why they're important okay yeah so so values uh when when when you're outlining your values in your business it's kind of it's you

01:07 you you always going to start with your your commitment your purpose um you know line that up with your vision and your mission and you got to get to a point where you need to have clearly outlined values for your team this kind of it becomes your road map for your team on how to behave as a team how to behave out there with your clients uh how we behave you know as an organization and really you know it really ties in what you're ties into what you're committed to as as a as a whole as a group um is

01:42 that is that uh yeah for sure yeah yeah just wanted to get like a bit of an operational definition just so uh you know before we start diving into a a discussion on values in general just wanted to um yeah land on a bit of a definition there I suppose so y uh yeah so so why why yeah you kind of touched on a little bit but like why would it be important then for businesses to be able to Define their value specifically like can they just have some generic values or I know sometimes you know and before we hopped on the call here we talked

02:13 about you know how some companies just kind of Workshop their values and then you know I've seen it before those kind of throw the values up on the wall but they don't necessarily translate into you know the operations of the company like why is it important then for businesses to Define their values so your values should translate into your your your team's daily actions um why it's important is if if if they don't have a a compass to guide them on you know this is who we are this is how we behave um you you may have opposing

02:46 values in your company and that's that becomes a little tricky to to deal with at times that's where there's conflict and where people are maybe on a on a different different page or just not aligned and um yeah it gets a little challenging to to work through some of those details when you have core values in place excuse me you have core values in place um it allows you to make much better decisions so um it's decisions that are aligned with the values of your company so when you're hiring a new new

03:19 staff member team member um you can and you're interviewing them you can see are they a good fit not just for the role or function that they're going to be fulfilling in the company but also so are they a good fit for our team and the values that you know are are they aligned with our values and um I every client that I work with I always encourage them to to go back to their core values a lot of them don't have it and that's where you know we we we got to get into the a little bit more of the weeds and get that dialed in um and then you can go back and say all right this

03:52 is what we're this is who we're looking for this is the behavior this is the you know the person that we're looking at bringing on board um if you yeah I'm curious lynon sorry to cut you off there but uh for a company that doesn't have their values defined um maybe this is getting into the weeds a little bit but maybe you have a bit of a a generic way of approaching it what what's the best way to maybe land on some values and how many values right should you have 20 should you have five six um you know and how would you go about getting those right it's a it's a great question and I

04:24 think a lot of companies end up with around or close to 10 core value use um I think there's there's some overarching components to consider there so U my recommendation is something between four and six core values in your company and um how to get there is think about the values that are important to you as the owner or the um ownership structure of the team or the the business think about uh the values that are key to your business becoming successful uh think

04:57 about the values that are core to your clients uh projects being successful or their jobs being successful and uh values that are also key to ensuring that your team want to do better and strive for more so if you can think of those values and align those values uh to you know like with your business and um you know get those core values in place you can come up with a term a word or whatever that uh that fits with that but they're all going to be kind of inter interl or woven in together in some way or form you know if you use the

05:31 word integrity for example um it will overlap with so many other different words right one of our values at our company Expansive EDGE is impact and um when we start unpacking impact there's a whole lot more values that live in that but the core value there is impact you know and and really the impact that we're out to make in the communities that we we work in or the communities that we serve um you know the businesses that we work with and you know our team you know we really want to have an impact in every every space that we're

06:04 operating in okay um okay yeah so do you can you give like maybe a bit of an example of even yeah so use Integrity I suppose as one but like so you're saying it could be a word I've seen maybe like people businesses use phrases yeah um okay you can then okay um yeah so I mean um like I'm I want to use an example but I don't know if uh if uh if I can um maybe without saying specific

06:39 names I suppose is that companies that I've worked with before have used uh values around who they're being so um you know being you know real for example so just being real in every engagement that uh that you have so you know that that is kind of like a way of being in the company so that's how they create their values and structure their values okay um you another thing that you could look at is like customer centricity so we value putting the customer first and what does that look like um you know

07:12 just unpacking that really getting into the weeds of that so not just having like a phrase or a word but even like unpacking that a little bit more so it's it's more like a statement around that right okay okay yeah it it kind of almost leans into being a guarantee in a sense but uh because this is like this is who we are and this is how we guarantee we're going to behave right right so is it like a code of conduct almost or would that be uh something different alog together it code of conduct is completely different but yes

07:44 uh the answer is yes it is like a code of conduct because when when you hire someone into your business you're you're effectively saying these are our values and this is how we behave as a team right and when it comes to taking disciplinary action or you know performance reviews or anything like that if you need to dismiss someone on your team or terminate the engagement with them you simply you know having that conversation along the way you're showing them that they're not a good fit for the business because you know this is who we are and you're not aligning

08:17 with that you know we we operate with Integrity you're not aligning with that so when you're mapping out your um you know kpis and everything else and they're not aligning with that or maybe there's a communication issue you know hey we value you know putting communication first putting our customer first whatever you know whatever those values come come out to be um you know you can have that conversation and you can just weave it back into your values for example so you're you're taking a human approach to it and um tying it into like your

08:51 pillars that you've set out for your company right okay and so you kind of touched on a little bit but like um how then would value play into decision making uh for a business that's a good question and um I mean there there there could be a whole lot of different contexts around this um and I'm gonna I'm G to use an example of a a company here in in in the incubator with us um they do biochar and um as a byproduct or I'm not

09:25 exactly sure how it works but you can use that for explosives or bombs um and one of their values is um you know no harm I think it was just no harm um so that's one of their values so they're using that value to make a decision not to do business oh there we go give me a second I value having light in the in the office here and got some triggers that all right um so their value of no harm uh is is what guides them and the

09:59 decisions that they make and the clients that they bring on in their company um now when you're when you're doing your ctly planning or um you know you're looking at some marketing initiatives maybe what what type of clients you're you're you're targeting you can see are they aligned with your values maybe you're looking at doing some um not PR corporate social responsibility so some some marketing around that and you know doing some some good stuff uh for the community see what aligns with those

10:32 values as well it's interesting how um with the example that you gave you know there's intentionality behind something where they saw the potential for there to be a problem and it's like they kind of put a bit of a fence post in place or it's like this is what we value you don't go past here right it's almost like setting up fence post a little bit parameters that people operate within I suppose yeah and sometimes it's hard because you know like you're getting you're in business and um you know you you want to make money but uh you know those are the values that that are going to guide you and you know like you just

11:04 you just like you say you don't step over that fence or you don't climb over that fence it kind of right so it's like a like filters for decision- making essentially at the end of the day is sort of the idea yeah okay okay um and then this also we kind of touched a little bit about this as well it sounds like but as far as like how values drive like culture like the culture of a company um what what does that look like so yeah I think trying to I'm trying to think of an example here

11:40 um sorry problem so how your your values Drive the culture in the company if you don't have values um your values do kind of guide your culture in your company if you don't have those values your team are going to decide for you what your culture looks like and what your value are if you have no values um the problem the problem is if if you have those values and you don't have a strong enough leadership team to actually execute and um reinforce those values in in the company um people are just going

12:15 to like they're not going to treat it very well and and I don't know if I mentioned this uh to you when we were chatting earlier or on this call but i' i' argue that or if I had to Haz a guess I think probably about 70 or 80% of the people listen to this they've got values established in their business but no one's kind of reinforcing those values um proactively right no one's really stepping in there and and and reinforcing those values proactively in the business like understanding what does it mean to to you know to our our

12:48 core value of impact or our core value of no harm or our core value of Integrity or our core value of communication whatever however you you're bringing those values cross what does that mean and and how are we are we applying that or demonstrating that or you know um letting that resonate through our business how do we how do we actually continually um reint or introduce that into our business so that our team actually resonate and connect with those values that we have so it's almost like

13:22 you know if you end up workshopping out the values you know you have it leave the workshop it goes onto the wall the proverbial wall right values are on the wall so then I guess it comes down to like how do you get them off the wall and into the the day-to-day operations and into the way people act like what so how how would you do that like what would be the best way for a company to make sure that their values are actually uh guiding decision making and are influencing culture in a way culture I say like culture the culture of the company in a way that they want it to well it all starts with the

13:56 leadership so um you know hey we don't behave like that here or you know we this is not who we are as a team or you know just uh just when there's there's Taps on the shoulders addressing them immediately when um you people are out of line um you know addressing it in a reasonable manner or sense um one one of the ways that we we did that in our company is uh we would have like a weekly our weekly sort of meetings um with would step in and

14:30 whoever is leading the meeting would would take one of our core values and and literally say you know how has someone on the team sort of demonstrated one of our core values we' pick one and would do like a round table and be you know less than a minute and um you know Charles or Joe or Josh can you time in and say I want to acknowledge um you know someone on the team for you know demonstrating our core value of whatever it is and this is an example of what

15:03 happened there and what uh what they did so you're starting to get that you're starting to reinforce that people are starting to like listen and okay this is are they connecting with that right like you're interacting with with them with the ideas I suppose instead of just having them listed somewhere like you're actually interacting with them intentionally and thinking through examples that actually help calfy that a little bit more so they're not just on the website where uh someone read them when they joined the company right it's great to have them on the walls you know just as a as a you know a reminder that like you know this is who

15:36 we are this is you know how we behave this is you know these this is what we value right it's great to have it there as visual reminders um but there's there needs to be more you know there needs to be more ways of actually uh reinforcing that in the business and it comes back to to leadership always um if the leadership are not demonstrating in Integrity or um communication or whatever a value in the business is and um that becomes acceptable Norm then that's how the team are going to behave

16:10 and then there're it's like tone from the top right yeah they're not going to treat the values that they're there as you know like we're not serious about this you know this is not right we we're actually um what's the the laser Fair like I don't know how to pronounce that but uh La Fair yeah um you know it's it's it's too loose right you you got to tighten up on that culture okay um what uh this might be an interesting question but like what what would be a

16:43 good way for somebody to try to have those conversations with someone on their team so say you have someone on your team who's not really um acting in a way that's align with the values of the company whether or not they're expressly stated and maybe kind of another question would be you know for a company that H doesn't have their values established or defined yet uh if they established and Define them how do you I mean we kind of went here a little bit but how do you um deal with the fact that there may be people on your team who are not aligned with the values like

17:16 what does that look like in a in kind of a practical example yeah um so I I'd say there's a bit of coaching that goes that gets involved I mean um always always consider that there's a human on the other side there and um you know just getting them present to you know like this is who we are you know this is the way that you're behaving doesn't align or it's not a fit for for who we are as a team and um you just get them present to that but if the behavior continues or it's uh it's not in alignment with your your core values and it has got an

17:49 impact on on the team and you know like the performance um then then there's some some coaching that would be um that would need to come into play so um it's almost like I guess objective criteria that you can assess Behavior against is what it sounds like yeah I think just uh yeah like having that that as a as a benchmark to say you like this is you know again who we are this is how we behave these are the rules that we kind of like play Within here um and I'm trying to think

18:23 of an example of where that you like maybe there's a deadline that was missed or maybe there's an employee that comes to work late um you know and that doesn't kind of fit with the with the rest of the team uh one of the the companies that I work with trainual one of their core values is uh always show up prepared or ready some something along those lines and what that means is um you know when when you're having your meeting and you're doing a presentation you know put in the work make sure that you show up prepared and ready right that's that's a good one that everyone should adopt

18:56 hey yeah um and and it it's you like doesn't matter what you got to do to to show up prepared and ready um but then they've got other values that also align with that so for example if uh if you have integrity and you know that you cannot show up prepared and ready um just be in communication so so uh at the earliest opportunity you're sharing with the next person or the person that you've committed to getting something done with um you know you just communicate with them a simple text message an email aone phone call hey I'm

19:30 not going to make it on time I you know something's come up or you I simply don't have the capacity for whatever it is and just be in communication with them have that Integrity around what you're doing so to answer your question or to go back to the question if there's person that's not doing that or not aligning with the values just step into you know coaching them so getting them present um there's a focused coaching approach which I'll share maybe in another one of these episodes here but the first part is just creating the awareness right creating awareness

20:03 making sure that they take uh they they're ready to take the responsibility for it um making sure that they know how to do it um and then checking what's getting in the way what what's interfering and then then you can see whether they need support or you know like they they're going to take they're going to commit to the action but do they need support do they need to be challenged um and then sort of coaching them through that and if you're still not getting results out of them you know like again it's uh you moving through that coaching and performance management

20:35 process right I think that I think that comment about awareness is pretty key because um you know I've seen it before just over the years different environments where there's not even an awareness made of the issue before there's maybe corrective action trying to be implemented in the person's like I I didn't even know this was a thing right so yeah that initial conversation about you know perhaps misalignment with the values is an important First Step there and that and that's quite sad like what you mentioned right there is um that's just poor leadership right so

21:08 when when you're taking corrective action um or and you haven't even created that awareness with the individual right it's uh you haven't given them an opportunity to correct their behavior or to align with you know the values of the business it could be a salesperson it could be a you know an OP Ops person it doesn't matter who it is in the in the company but in some way or another they're not performing or they're not behaving in a in a way that aligns with the company's values right

21:41 yeah okay and that awareness is that's the first step like um you know when when when someone walks in late uh like like I showed up a little bit late for this uh this call today I think didn't I didn't want to throw you under the bus on that one lynon I thought I wouldn't mention it but yeah but um yeah I mean it's you called me out on it you sent me a message said hey is this still happening so um you know then that's that's ex exactly the type of leadership that that companies need is you know hey um I noticed you you you you missed this

22:16 deadline or this deliverable or you were late for work or whatever it is you know um we're not here to microm manage you but you know like we we need to make sure that this you that you're in alignment with who we are as a team because otherwise that just keeps on slipping and slipping and um you know when when the time comes that you actually have to address it um you haven't created that awareness and you're just going in for the kill and you're like f up I'm I don't want him on my team or her on my team anymore right you

22:49 know like you just uh you're you're done with them and it's like that's coming out of left field um completely out of left field so you really want you want to create that awareness before um you know before you got to take proper action and I suppose uh you know getting to what you're just kind of talking about there if it goes on for too long it can also start to I suppose impact other people on the team as well yeah absolutely so if if it goes uh unaddressed you're starting to erode the culture in your business because if if you're letting it slip with with one

23:22 person other people are seeing that for sure absolutely seeing it so they're going to be like well if he can get away with this um you're like right I can do it too and then um and then that's when your whole leadership structure starts slipping away and then uh and then you you've got to call a big meeting get everyone together rally them up and yeah just everybody you know back in line again um and you can avoid that just by simply you know when you get that tap on the shoulder it's like hey you know this is uh you're you're out of line here

23:54 yeah yeah we uh a place I used to work at we used to refer to those as one degree Corrections and so if you saw something was off just just address it right away just a little correction rather than having to give it six to eight months or whatever and have them try to reel it in at that point right it's a lot more difficult oh it's gross you don't want to you don't want to have to deal with that at that point right it's it becomes messy for it becomes an HR issue you know I think it's it's uh you know just have the good lead be a good leader you know just be in

24:26 communication with your team um you know take a look at your values use your values as guiding principles for for the rest of the business you know if you if you're have someone on your team that's not performing or not uh not getting it done just go back to those values like where are they not in alignment with those values call them in say Hey you know like this is this is what I've recognized you know this is you know this is what the impact is on the rest of the team and and that's that's really important because it's not about you and how you feel feel about

24:58 them it's it's really about the impact that their behavior is having on the rest of the business right the rest of the team so um if and and you can just say like if if if we don't address this and it becomes accept acceptable it starts eroding the culture that we're trying to develop or that we're developing in this company or that we have developed in the company right suppose if you set up a regular Cadence to meet with your team once a month or once every a few weeks or something uh like each person individually it can maybe set like provide the the um the environment to at least have those

25:30 conversations instead of have pardon me having to be like hey we need to have a conversation here right um you know you can actually just kind of have those little corrective conversations little one one degree uh discussions on a more regular basis I I I I think one of the biggest things that I've come across in companies is um and and it's great that they're doing it but it's uh probably not the best way of doing it um they do like a an annual performance review and the you know what happens in advance of

26:05 that is like someone knows it's coming up and they're like hey the next four weeks I'm just going to crush it at work you know because then the recency effect comes into play for the annual performance review and then that's what happens kind of like the the last 11 months has no bearing on uh on that's right yeah viw so the other problem with that is um you know you shouldn't be waiting a whole year to to you know communicate with your team they should be going ongoing all the time should doing like daily or at least weekly check-ins with everybody um and I'm

26:37 talking about like a manager with their with their crew or their with their team you know or um you know like someone who's maybe a director with their with their substructure that they've got they don't have to go into like you know all the layers below them but just check with their team the direct reports giving them some feedback you know hey how's it going you know like a just a check in like what's happening how's it going where can I where can I support you and then also um you know check in some areas because you want to challenge them you want them to perform better you

27:08 always want to like push them a little bit harder and um you want to be able to identify and have those conversations with them so that they are you know pushing their limits a little bit more and doing better um because that's that's what a leader does you know like you make people better you take out of their comfort zones and uh and uh make more leaders I guess yeah Inspire them to be better right now we're getting tight on on uh against the clock here ly but just um from a practicality

27:40 perspective what would what would some next steps be for businesses who want to take this a little bit more seriously just given the impact that it has on decision- making and shaping culture with intention like what what would some next some good next steps be a good question I think uh you know the first couple of things that come to mind is um yeah I mean first go and take a look at your your your values and are you as a leader you know are you demonstrating those values in your company are you walking the walk talking the talk are you um you know are you really what you have outlined there is

28:15 that you is that you know who you are in your business and then take a look at then then take a step back look at your team and and see how they're aligning with those values maybe you need to rework those values maybe maybe you know you you put those values together when you started your business a couple of years back and you know that that's kind of just there because we wanted to tick a box but now you now you can really revisit this and be um purposeful about you know and intentional about the um your values in your business and really use those values to shape who you are as a as a team and Al also to help you

28:50 guide the decisions that you make U moving forward in your business so if something happens something goes wrong on site or on a job or you know like can we use our values to help us guide making a decision you know does it mean that I've got to go and call my manager or my um supervisor or you know are we empowered as as a team to to make certain decisions based on the values that we are in a company so you start creating a bit more autonomy within your organization as well by having that um that approach um what other kit

29:26 takeaways can I offer you here maybe you've got one Josh just from from listening to or just engaging in this conversation well well I was I was wondering like are there any resources out there that people could uh go to as well to maybe um help guide them through the process uh resources um trying to think of anything I I'll uh I'll prepare something I'll drop it in in the chat of our um of our podcast episode so you can go take a look there I'll get a couple

29:57 of things together for uh you for for the listeners um but yeah I think you know just uh how to how to create those values we'll put something in there okay yeah to get to get to your uh question just about um anything that I've seen um I think the importance of of staying true to the values because that'll really help calcify and I've seen it before where um we're looking at hiring somebody uh not a base point a company used to work for years ago and uh pretty senior level position that we were

30:29 looking at hiring for and the person came in they had fantastic qualifications amazing experience uh but just the personality like very misaligned with the values and so everyone was excited about the potential hire because like we really need this person like sitting in the seat um but you know our goal was not to just have a warm body in the seat with the qualifications uh we're pretty pretty intentional about the culture and the values and uh so when we had to communicate that no we're not actually hiring this person and you know it came with the discussion that these things

31:01 are actually important to us like these values are important to us and uh that really helps just uh reinforce what is important to us as a company and uh yeah those types of things just really help you know in shaping the culture as well it it aligns with the compass right that uh your vision your mission your purpose um your values you know these are all your your business's compass and and kind of sets the D Direction and the tone for everybody uh involved right yeah okay well this has been uh this has

31:33 been very helpful Lyon I appreciate your insight into this and um my takea away from this is I'm at least going to go and revisit the values that we have listed to see how relevant they still are so um yeah thank you for that any takeaways that you have I've shared my takeaways and I'll share uh uh something in the in the chat as well that people can use yeah just a little bit of a guide y all right thanks very much Lyndon and yeah for everybody who's listening um hope that was helpful hopefully um you can take that and help shape some of the values for your

32:06 business which will help uh with your decision- making as a filter and also help in shaping the culture of your business and um yeah and then also keep an ey for any other episodes that we have as we dive into other important topics about helping uh you do business better excellent Josh thanks and thanks to the listeners all right we'll see you next time cool take care