Core Values - have you looked at yours lately?

Core values.

This isn’t just a section of your website, something you post on your wall, or a blurb you review every couple of years. Core values should be at the forefront of your business, truly embraced and practiced.  

When we all moved to remote working a year ago, the businesses that thrived were the ones committed to maintaining their core values and culture. It was the businesses that kept in constant communication with their team and pivoted with ease because they worked together.

At Slater Success, some of our core values are honesty and communication.

We tell it like it is and we support each other through it all. Our team meetings are about business, but also about human elements of life. How are you? How are the kids? Is anything challenging you this week? What are you celebrating? 

Our team has always been virtual, but we made sure to get together even more often over the past year, doing a virtual holiday party and other Zoom get-togethers. We recently had our semi-annual team retreat which is our time to spend a few hours together and map out our vision for the future of the company. Slater Success is not me all alone, it is me and my team. 

If you are in a leadership role, I hope you’re listening to your team. This is one of the biggest skills to develop and improve for all of us in general, but especially those leading others. 

The subtle signs we could see in-person like not making eye contact, or a shift in the chair or a tapping of the pencil aren’t visible on Zoom and we might not sense frustration from our team as readily. We need to make sure we are always listening and giving them the space to come to us. 

You see your team in one small square on the computer, you don’t see what they are dealing with around them. Kids, pets, other family members, outside distractions, etc. Virtual backgrounds are great, yet they are a disguise of what is going on in the world around you.  

There is added stress no one thought of before like comparing your home to someone else’s because you can see it on Zoom or wondering why someone else’s kids are behaving and yours aren’t. We have enough stress, we don’t need more.

Ensure your core values and the culture of your business is built around support, communication and trust.

If everyone feels comfortable coming to the table, the other stressors are easier to manage.

I’ve had some amazing leaders joining me on my LinkedIn Live show and one of the major takeaways I get after these interviews is how the leaders have built great companies, but also built great cultures. Their working environments are helping to set up their teams for success, at every single level. 

Take a look at your core values and start to implement practices to really live them in your business. It makes a world of difference and changes the game for the absolute better.  If you have not addressed your core values and company culture throughout this past year, let’s talk. Retreats are happening and there is a benefit of coming together on multiple levels.