Founder and CEO of Packed with a purposewhere corporate gifts foster meaningful relationships and create deep social impact.
getty
My company, Packed with Purpose, is starting the year with a newly codified lens for doing business: our completed core values. These values are not just words on a page. They are our shared language, the foundation of our corporate culture and a set of non-negotiable guidelines for how we as employees behave towards each other, our partners and the public. By leading with our values, we know who we are, where we want to go and how to get there.
Here are a few ways we will put our values into practice in 2023.
Look and reflect on the past year.
In 2022, we surveyed our entire team to gather input for our new values. We asked, “Which of the workforce best represents our values and why?” Our leadership team then carefully assessed the commonalities and themes and developed what we now use to guide our work. Some of our values are ‘Be a good partner’, ‘Be curious’ and ‘Be solution-oriented’.
Then, at the start of 2023, we took a moment to pause and celebrate the previous year’s successes. It’s a process that gives everyone a moment to reflect with pride on their work and start a new year fresh. This process can be even more effective and motivating if done as a reflection of your company values. I started the first team meeting of the new year by summing up our achievements through the lens of our core values.
For example, when I praised our ability to quickly change strategy in the fourth quarter, I cited that performance as an example of our value: “Be flexible.” And when I talked about the improved collaboration between sales, marketing and operations, it was in the context of our value ‘Be a good partner’. By linking our achievements to our values, these shoutouts are more than empty praise: they are affirmations of who we are and confirmation that our values guide the right actions.
Run employee assessments through the lens of your core values.
Our values are our ‘non-negotiables’. They are the foundation upon which we all hold ourselves accountable, and this year we will use them as an important aspect of our annual reviews. Employees will self-report whether they are in line with each of our five values, then managers complete the same assessment on a quantifiable scale and notice any differences. This gives our people managers the tools to provide feedback in a shared language and a clear understanding of what success looks like.
This also takes the strain out of feedback because we have all entered into a contract that our values are the backbone of our professional performance. For example, an employee who excelled will have specific examples of when they were “solution-oriented” or “adaptable,” but perhaps there was an occasion where they weren’t “curious.” In addition to performance against our annual goals, our values provide measurable outcomes to assess behavior throughout the year. If a colleague repeatedly fails to demonstrate our values, it is clear that he is not a good fit for the organization.
Use your values to guide decision making and future planning.
The most important way we put our values into practice is as a guiding force for our vision and decision-making. What we invest in and what we cut back on in 2023 must all pass the values ’sniff test’. In the face of continued uncertain economic headwinds, we want to leverage our “Be Solution-Focused” value from the top down and across departments to identify efficient software solutions to streamline our processes. As we decide on marketing strategies, we will return again and again to our value, “Be a good partner”, making sure we focus on mutually beneficial co-marketing as we outline our content for the year with our impact partners. And finally, we will be “adaptable” knowing that the macro environment can shift at times, presenting new opportunities that should allow for flexibility across the team.
Developing our core values was extremely important in 2022. We built it together and are proud of the results. But values are just words on a page if they are not effectively put into action on a daily basis. Kicking off 2023 with a newly codified way of identifying and retaining talent, making tough decisions and driving our vision energizes our team for a great year ahead. As I said, these are our non-negotiables, our shared language and our decision making machine, but in the simplest terms they are who we are as a company. Knowing we have a true north guiding our processes and behavior helps me start the year with a confidence that is contagious. Here’s to a new year of driven, curious, flexible, solution-oriented and a good partner. I hope putting your values into practice can do the same for you.
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