When Values and Culture Matter
Like many small businesses, we’ve been through the process of defining our Mission – creating prosperity and great experiences for staff and clients – and our Vision (how our mission and values come together to an end goal), then engaging our team to define Porters’ Values.
Our Values a lot of thinking and team engagement behind them. As a business owner I use them to talk with staff about how and why we need to unite with the same values guiding us, in order to be successful.
But have we created something tangible or are we playing with intangible fluff and management mumbo jumbo? The more we work, the more convinced we are that they really do matter.
Like many a dedicated small business owner, deep contemplation happens in the dark of night when we’d rather be sleeping.
How do we tackle a challenge? What to do about an ethical dilemma? When a client or staff member is in difficulty what can we do to help? What should we do? We’ve made an error that only we know about, so how do we manage it?
Maybe we can endure an issue by applying a band-aid fix and avoid upheaval and disruption? It is tempting, but our values suggest it is never the right answer.
When we make a decision aligned with our values it may not be easy, it is often scary, and it usually feels good in the end.
We have pride in our values and love nothing better than a team member or client providing us praise that reflects that our operating culture is in line with our values and that is shining through in the way we engage.
It’s not all hard work
Our value of genuine care means we build deep and meaningful relationships. We can experience and celebrate the success of others knowing that we have played a part in getting there and feeling happy to see someone succeed.
When we play as a team we succeed together. We improve together, we celebrate a goal, a birthday, a new system implementation.
Grow or die is one of my favourites. There may be a new system, a technology, a time we need to take a step outside of our comfort zone to do something special. It means our natural procrastination before taking a giant leap into the unknown need not hold us back for long.
Conclusion
We truly believe Values matter as they define our Culture and our service delivery. For Porters CA, it has taken years of thinking to distill our ideas and it won’t stop here.
What matters to you? What matter to your business? How will you bring that to life?
cheers, Simon
WE ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO
