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What Leaders Need to Know About Core Values · Leading in Change

• speaker-0: Change used to feel like a one-time event. Something you managed and led through, then came out the other side. But we are not living in that world anymore, and change is constant now. That means the job isn't leading through it, it's learning to lead in it. So how do you actually do that? That's what this show is all about. I'm Adrienne a partner and consultant at Success Labs, and this is the Leading in Change podcast. And every episode we dig into the real questions leaders are wrestling with right now. Everything from delegating effectively when the target keeps moving to managing your career in the age of AI. Topics are coming directly from our clients, listeners, and leaders just like you. If you want to lead your people well and manage effectively in the chaos, you're in the right place. Let's get to it. speaker-1: Hi, I'm Gloria. speaker-0: And I'm Adrian and this is the Leading in Change podcast. And today we're going to be talking about values. And so in this episode, we are going to help you understand, you know, why do values matter when you're leading in change? How do you really stress test them and make sure that your team understands what they look like in practice? And if you don't have clear values, how do you get there with your team? So before we dig in, I'd love to start with an icebreaker. So since we're talking about values today, Gloria, I'd love to hear ⁓ What's maybe a value that you had when you were growing up ⁓ that you still carry with you today? speaker-1: I think my parents instilled values by their actions. You know, we never really sat down and talked about things. I never got lectured or grounded and what we did was just really have fun. Yeah. You know, so to be funny, to have fun, life is short. Yeah. And, you know, that's just kinda how we lived our lives and I carry that I carry that forward today. speaker-0: Yeah. You have a natural joie de vie. You know? Yes. Yeah. I love that. ⁓ how about you? Yeah. For myself, you know, my dad was kind of strict, you know, but he was also silly. So there was this phrase he would always say to us, act enthusiastic and you'll be enthusiastic. And he would make us say it until we were enthusiastic before we could get out of the car in the mornings. And part of that for him was always like everything is mindset. I mean, his value was, you know, y like self determination was everything, you know. And so I very much carry that with me of like, it's on you, you know, you ha you have control of your life, you know, and mindset is what's gonna get you there. So I don't know if that's quite a value, but it's definitely yeah, ⁓ something I carry with me still. So cool. Well, I'm excited to dig in and talk about values today. I'll tee up kind of why speaker-1: Yeah, it sounds like one ⁓ speaker-0: is do we think this is important and look for you to add anything in. So when you know the whole point of this podcast is really how do you effectively lead in change, right? Because we say change is not something that you lead through. It's kind of the new normal that you're leading in. Right. And so I I'm gonna run through a few stats that it kind of helps speak to this because you know I like some stats. So ⁓ Research shows that organizations that emphas emphasize shared purpose are 2.4 times more likely to set clear direction and four point times more likely to be described as a healthy organization. And companies where employees report both purpose and clarity see seven point seven point six percent ⁓ higher resilience when it comes to shocks. So that means they're more likely to be able to absorb change and and big shocks to the system better. And then purpose is really important to engagement. So Gallup finds that purpose is one of the four key factors that employees need from leaders to feel safe and secure and happy and engaged with the workplace. and I I think values are really core to purpose. Right. Do you speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. And I think also purpose is one of the factors that can drive burnout and stress. ⁓ there's a ⁓ Harvard Business Review article that talks about burnout as, you know, unrelenting stress. And one of the ways that people start to tend to feel burnout is when they don't feel connected or purpose to what they're doing. ⁓ it just feels like, you know. speaker-0: Say more. speaker-1: I have no idea, right? We're just running around. Yeah. But that if as a leader you can connect what employees are doing on a regular basis back to something that is bigger than them, that it reduces the amount of stress they feel for those tasks, which can then reduce the likelihood that they're gonna burn out. speaker-0: that I think that's exactly right. Gallup did similar research on burnout and they found that one was employees using their strengths really mattered. But then two, working with leaders that exhibited those four behaviors, you know, purpose, ⁓ safety, belonging, and care. I think were the four. Hopefully I got that right. But yeah, so ⁓ I then I I would love to s start the conversation by asking, you know, when you're working with a team, you know, ⁓ intact in an organization, ⁓ especially going through change, how do values show up and how do you see them come into play? speaker-1: one thing that I do when I work with teams is make sure they know, right? You have company values, right? And they all say yes. ⁓ and for the most part they know what th they are, but they have to look them up. Yeah. and so one of the things I I talk to them about is is truly knowing what those are, what they mean, and then to be able to describe what actions meet those values. You know, ⁓ an activity called Above the Line, Below the Line, which is a great activity, is having people identify real work examples of when the values were demonstrated. You know, and not in vague general ways, but in specifically, you know, ⁓ this person did this and that was a good representation of this particular value. And then we talk about, okay, what about below the line? What behaviors do you see that don't And then I also ask them to think themselves because, you know, no perfect people, no perfect leaders. So when have they found themselves to be operating possibly below the values and how can they minimize that, right? What can they do differently the next time? And then with their team, it's a great way for them to then take that and facilitate some sessions with their own teams where their folks are are doing the same thing. And it makes it ⁓ easier at the same time more effective because they're not just standing up in a room lecturing the employees about the values. They're actually having them think about ⁓ discuss them, and all of that information is coming from the team members, from the employees, which is quite powerful. speaker-0: Yeah. So one of the things we'll dig into in a second is I do think that values kind of come from the ground up are really important for a team. If you haven't established values yet. One of the other things you said that stuck out to me is really that self-reflection. One of the reasons I love self-reflection questions is because they're diagnostic. They help you assess, okay, where have I maybe been out of alignment with my personal values or my company values? Where have I really been in alignment? And that Just awareness helps you calibrate how to behave going forward. speaker-1: Absolutely. And when I have them do that self-reflection, you know, there is a lot of honesty there. And one ask them why? Why did you operate below the values? And one of the most consistent answers is ⁓ because it's hard. It's it's hard it's hard to always maintain that. And so sometimes taking the easy way out, and you know, they admit this pretty freely. And I get it, right? We all do that. So it really gets them to reflect on what you're doing, what you're being asked to do. You know, we can talk about it, talk is easy, but actually doing it is difficult and you have to make some tough choices. ⁓ you have to accept the consequences of those. And so it's just a ⁓ a real deep discussion that not a lot of people have the opportunity to really talk about at work, but that I can tell is extremely important and meaningful to them. speaker-0: Absolutely. And I think slight tangent off track, but something you said pinged in my brain. You know, when a company is out of alignment with their values in terms of their behavior, I think about I remember Gap and Nike when I was I can't remember when this happened, but they both got in big trouble for using sweatshop labor. And it felt so out of alignment with the values that they were espousing, which were really human centric. Right. And so then to be using this exploit of labor was really ⁓ created that brand gap that made people distrust them and they had to do a lot of work to rebuild the integrity of the organization. I want to call out something that I hear a lot when teams are working with values, which is that a lot of organizational processes to develop values kind of end up at the same place. Right. So like integrity, excellence, collaboration, innovation, respect, right? So they're there are these words, but they feel really inert. Right. And so you talked about ⁓ you know, naming them explicitly, but in your experience, what's the kind of most common mistakes organizations make when ⁓ make with their values? And how do you find you know, how can you tell that they've made those mistakes? speaker-1: ⁓ I think I I don't know if it's a mistake. I guess it's a mistake, but it's it's a missed opportunity. You know, there's been work put into those values, even if they are some of the generic words of integrity and trust and respect, which ⁓ are good because they are universal. But we all have somewhat of a different definition of that. So I think where where they go wrong is keep is is not continuing that, you know, is You put them on the wall, but really put them on the wall. ⁓ I used to work for Intel Corporation. We had them on our badge, we had we all sat in cubicles, but we had the values in our cubicles. And then more than that, they were deeply embedded in everything we did. When you were giving positive recognition, you had to assign it to one of the company values. When you were giving feedback, it was a great opportunity to use that instead of some kind of rule book which is static. And you can't put everything in a policy manual. And so, but we could always go back to, you know, I think one of my favorite values was great place to work. And so, you know, toxic behavior, ⁓ unreliable behavior can all be, you know, couched in is this a great place to work or or not? ⁓ and then even in our weekly and our monthly reports, the different sections of those status reports, weekly reports. It was a value. How did my organization ⁓ demonstrate great place to work this week? How did my or organization demonstrate customer orientation? And so, you know, it it it was a lot when I first started there and it felt almost like a cult. Sorry, but it did. But you know, it was culture, right? Yeah. And so once you realize the power of it and the benefit of it. I I totally body in and I can see why, you know, that sort of thing works. And when I go and I I teach this or work with teams, I'm still somewhat surprised at how much people get into that type of conversation when we start talking about takeaways from the workshop. A lot of them say, I'm really gonna, I'm really gonna tug on these. I'm really gonna use them. They're right the taking. So it's great. It's great language. speaker-0: I love that. Yeah. One of the things you said that stuck out is a policy manual is static. And so it's hard to make up all the rules that are going to tell somebody how to operate at work. But it's impossible, right? But values can guide you. And so I can think of a specific example. I remember in 2020 when I was working with a team that was going remote for the first time and they had a a an incident that they asked me to come weigh in on. And it was a professional ⁓ dress policy. And somebody was showing up on camera at home in like yoga clothes. Like I think it was like a tank top situation that and you know, they were like, We you cannot wear tank tops in the workplace. And this employee was like, I'm at home. Right? Like I'm at my house doing work, like who cares? And So what I helped them do was lean on their value of professionalism. It was a stated value in the workplace. And so then that helped give some guidance to yes, like in this technical instance, I think the policy said when you're in the office or something like that, because they were trying to make a rule about when you're volunteering, you can dress differently or whatever. You can't make a rule for every single thing. But values can guide. Do we look professional in this customer setting? Right. speaker-1: Right. And and they are, ⁓ you're able to then it varies, right? So you're not stuck on exactly this. It's you're really just looking for this is what we're trying to do. Right. And that helps guide then the decisions that people make for everything down to am I gonna wear a tank top or am I gonna put on, you know, a collared shirt. speaker-0: Right, right. I love that. ⁓ speaker-1: So how did that go, Adrian, with the employee? Did they get on board with professional dress? speaker-0: They totally got it. You know, they felt like it was the organization being nitpicky in the beginning. And I you know, this was somebody who was clearly stressed, managing kids at home. You know, organizations need to have empathy for people, but putting it through a values lens helps, like you said, create that culture ⁓ and and manage those expectations. There's a handful of questions that I like to ask to help organizations kind of stress test their values and see if they're at work. I used to work with an organization where the CEO would say, you know, when was the last time our values cost us money? And I love that question because if your values aren't costing you anything, to your point, it's really when it's easy, it's easy. When it costs you money, that's when you know you're really living up to the value. one of the other questions was, ⁓ would we part ways with a high performer who couldn't live up to the value? Right. And I've I'm I'm curious, have you seen an organization that lets somebody maintain kind of that like toxic bad behavior that's out of alignment of values just 'cause they're productive? speaker-1: I don't think I've seen an organization that has not made that decision, you know, because at the end of the day, ⁓ businesses, it's a business, right? Even with Intel, great place to work starts with a place to work. So you have to be profitable, you know, you have to be a ⁓ a sustained business. And so those numbers that often those what we call a high performer, ⁓ drive that, right? It's very results driven. ⁓ bottom line driven. And there's value in that, right? You know, being business minded, being financially savvy. ⁓ at the same time, if you don't check that with appropriate behavior, then you get a work environment where it does start to cost you. So having people actually look at the toll on the organization, whether that is poor work because people are unhappy, ⁓ retention issues. Or in in extreme cases, this this top performer violates, you know, a value in a way that is criminal or immoral or unethical. ⁓ and then and and now now there's a lot of money involved in that. So yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: Very short-term thinking. Short-term. Right. So I've seen teams keep a toxic player on board. I'm working with one right now. They feel like they cannot afford to let this guy go, even though he has cost them so much time, so much money in managing this completely out of pocket behavior, you know, berating the team, being insubordinate, in a way that's really not appropriate for the workplace and not creating that good place to work, right? And what I have said to them is you're going to continue to lose talent as a result of this person. And that's what's happening. And think about how expensive it is to go recruit, rehire, retrain new people. But that's what happens when you let that misalignment of values persist and bad behavior persists throughout the organization. speaker-1: And why? Why do you think they're allowing that, Adrian? What do you what's at the heart of that? If they know they're losing money and they know why, you know, that what's happening with this person, why are they allowing it? speaker-0: I don't think they really believe in their values. I mean, I think that's part of it is that they think this is a convenient, pretty thing. But if they really had any conviction about it, they wouldn't allow this to persist because it absolutely is out of alignment ⁓ with their values. It's an employee owned company too. So you would think they would have some ⁓ conviction about that. ⁓ but I think it's also easy. You know, conflict is hard. ⁓ this person obviously adds value in other ways, largely to the bottom line. Right. speaker-1: Yeah, I would also ⁓ suggest that there's fear. There's fear of confronting that person. And a lot of people don't want to admit to being afraid of things. ⁓ but you know, leadership, whether it's first line or a higher level, requires bravery. And so they fear confronting a person, confronting anybody, right? 'Cause I see a tolerance of bad behavior. even in not top performers. Right. And so what's going on there is this fear of having a difficult conversation, which is kind of at the heart of it. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's right. Living your values takes bravery. I love that. Yeah. That's good. ⁓ okay, let's talk about where do you really start? So I think most of our listeners are probably in one of two places. They either have some values that are on a poster and they're not really sure if they're working, or they don't have any values at all, ⁓ that have been clearly articulated, right? Like the they maybe they have latent values, but they haven't been clarified. Right. ⁓ So if you already have values, ⁓ can you how how do you help people connect the values to decisions that are made or connect values to how to give feedback? How do you help kind of operationalize that? speaker-1: ⁓ I'm gonna ex ⁓ from experience here when I worked for Intel, we did this activity. ⁓ it was just it wasn't a one-time thing, but it was something that was a pr more of a program where we identified, you know, one of the I guess mottos of Intel at the time was cheaper, better, faster. The consumer wants microprocessors that are cheaper, better, faster. And for that to happen, for us to manufacture those, everyone. has to do their job cheaper, better, faster. So we were asked to envision ourselves as a company, just me, the company of Gloria. And what what could I legitimately invoice back to Intel for my services? Right? Because we all have billable hours, but we also have this kind of administrative overhead work that we do. Whether it's checking email, generating a report, you know, we're not billing for that. It's just kind of the cost of doing business. So in an effort to be cheaper, better, faster, we were asked, how do we reduce or eliminate our non-billable work in favor of spending more time on the billable work? And that encouraged us to really take a hard look at what we were doing, to question, you know, stakeholders about what they need from us. To try things like, hey, let me stop doing this for a while and see what happens. Yeah. You know, beg forgiveness. ⁓ and just really take a hard look at that. So it was empowering, it was in line with our values. And because we were all stockholders, it also made sense to everybody's bottom line. So, you know, that wasn't just a one-time activity. It really kind of set the tone. And it's something that, you know, 15 years later, I'm still. I still cannot have that mindset, you know, cheaper, better, faster. So activities like that where you're really you're testing your values, you're embedding it into ⁓ what people are doing and thinking about on an everyday basis, which then factors into the decisions that they make about what am I gonna work on? What am I gonna try to improve and things like that. speaker-0: Very cool. You know, I I won't love for you to share when you're ⁓ working with teams that I've I've heard you talk about helping them learn how to embed values in feedback. Ha talk to me about that. speaker-1: ⁓ s very similar to the exercise, the above the line, below the line. So first get them to identify, define the value, right? Define it in real terms, not just the lofty words on a page. And then in in a in a model for feedback as you frame up your statement of feedback, whether that's positive or constructive, just a plain language way of saying, you know, look, one of our values is integrity. And when you are you know, not doing what you said you were gonna do or you are ⁓ talking poorly about someone behind their back, that doesn't represent that demo doesn't demonstrate integrity. So just kind of a plain language way to to discuss it and have them practice with it. And probably even more powerful is and more readily doable is embedded in your positive feedback. You know, we had a certificate where you had to check the box of what value this particular specific behavior that you're recognizing someone for, how that demonstrated that value. And so again, that's more of a fun, positive way to talk about the values. But plain language, you know, take sometimes lofty words on the wall, translate those to how real people speak and say it. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: It reminds me I worked with a team that ⁓ had what were called shout outs. And so it you know, anybody could give it to anyone else in the company and you just it was a drop down bug. You would pick the value and then how did they demonstrate it? And that would help that that would help everybody connect the dots between what that value in was in theory and what it looks like in action. Right. And so I really loved it because one of the values was adventurous. And this was really about being comfortable taking risks and being comfortable getting uncomfortable. Right. And so whenever somebody would present a totally crazy idea to a client, you know, that wasn't something that they necessarily asked for, or when someone tried a new technology and or tried a new way to develop a process, that was rewarded, like that risk taking was rewarded in a really healthy way. And so that helped the team, you know. constantly be innovating, constantly be kind of pushing the boundaries because you were in almost incentivized. I mean, you were incentivized, I'll get to that in a second, to demonstrate that value. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ and I think there's a a a feedback model that ⁓ has on its axis effort and result. We tend to reward a result. If it's a good result, praise. If it's a bad result, punishment or, you know, constructive feedback. When it's not that's not all it, right? Because the effort that goes into getting that result is often the most important thing. You know, a near miss, right? So, you know, near miss is when people have done something, but we got lucky and it didn't bite, right? Like a safety incident. ⁓ that's a near miss. We don't celebrate the near miss. Even though the result was good, nobody got hurt, the behavior that that would potentially have caused it was problematic and it needed to be addressed. And so that's ki that's pretty obvious, right? We don't reward a near miss. On the other side of that, when you get a bad result. speaker-0: What's in your mist, Gloria? speaker-1: And you're only focused on the failure and not acknowledging the risk taking, the critical thinking, the creativity, then what that teaches people is I'm just gonna sit over here and not try to take risks, not try to be creative, because if I do and it goes awry, I get slapped. Right. Yeah. So postmortems, any kind of lessons learned, you know, acknowledging did this behavior? Even though it didn't get us where we wanted, did it demonstrate the values that we really care about? Because that's the only way that you're going to get what you really want, which is a good result, is a t a tolerance of a of a bad result sometimes. speaker-0: I mean, I think that goes to when's the last time your value cost you money, right? So I've seen teams do this in ⁓ choosing whether or not to keep a client on the books. You know, if a client has behavior that's inherently antithetical to the organization's values, I I experienced this and we let go of a multimillion dollar client that was a significant hit and we knew that was potentially gonna mean a reduction in force, like layoffs to compensate for that. But The other side of that was being locked into a contract for years with a client that berated the team that didn't respect boundaries in terms of time, you know, ⁓ in terms of timelines, in terms of our processes. And so at a certain point, you you as a leader are faced with that question of ⁓ am I gonna stand up for my team and our values, even if that means hitting the bottom line, or am I gonna keep just doing the quote unquote easy thing, but like really the team is the one taking the hit for it. One more way I've seen teams I w I'm running through all the ways I can think of. So we've talked about for embedding ⁓ operationalizing values. You can use it for feedback, both ⁓ constructive feedback, you know, calibrating what the right behaviors are in positive, right? So appreciation, celebration. ⁓ we heard that you can use it in some decision making. So, you know, it Do we keep this business? Do we not? Is this really in alignment with our values? And then, you know, the other thing that I've seen it embedded in is in performance evaluations or development conversations, right? Talk to me about how you've seen that work. speaker-1: ⁓ and hiring as well. Okay. So I think in performance evaluations, it and that really ties back to feedback, right? A performance review is a 365 day ⁓ exercise. So having it, you know, it's almost almost like ⁓ an open book test. Right. ⁓ you you you say day one, right? And and and here's ideally you get a new hire. Day one, you say here are our values and here's what that means. And we're gonna talk about behaviors that demonstrate it and behaviors that don't. speaker-0: Tell me more about that. speaker-1: And so and at the end of the year, I'm going to evaluate you based on your behavior and performance to these values. It's not a secret. Yeah. Right. It's not something, ⁓ 365 days later, surprise, right? Here's what you were supposed to be doing. So in setting those expectations, you're telling people and then regularly telling them in your one-on-ones, if I were doing your review today, here's what I would say, here's what I'm seeing. And then absolutely no surprises. And you're getting what you're trying to do. You're trying to get consistent behavior that meets expectations. And we just, for whatever reason, we probably the reason is time, right? Is we're especially leaders are just so time constrained. But if you think about if I am very regularly reviewing and speaking to my employees about their performance, they're either going to continue to meet or get better, or they're going to see the writing on the wall, which is They're they're not doing well. ⁓ again, it takes time, it takes courage, but so you know, it's a it's another great way to format your performance review. speaker-0: Yeah. I've worked with a team that made it really explicit. So they took each job description and basically said, what does it look like with values in action for this role? So for a project manager, one of the values ⁓ was better. So it was a a bias towards always a constant improvement. making something always taking it that last 10% to make it better. And so what that looked like in project management is how could we be faster? How could we save on budget? You know, how could we you know, get ⁓ better client feedback in the process, whatever it was, it was this bias towards constant improvement. And so that was like written into the job description of find a way to do our projects better, which I love. speaker-1: Yeah. And then for companies who do behavioral interviewing for hiring, embedding those in the questions. So if you're you have a value of continuous improvement or ⁓ risk taking, then the question you ask is tell us about a time where you took a risk. ⁓ how did it how did it work out? And what did you do about it? ⁓ that's a question that does it's not a hypothetical because we're all geniuses in the hypothetical. It's an actual question. Does this person have experience with this thing that is very important to us? Because you can train people for the technicalities of a job, right? You can just like, here's how to do this, right? But if you're not, if if you need someone that can hit the ground running, so to speak, or is qualified, you know, do they have experience demonstrating what you say is most important to you? Yeah. So from the hiring to the firing, ⁓ The the values are are there. It's a it's a key tool. speaker-0: Values are where it's at. Cool. speaker-1: All right. So Adrian, you know, I know you've done work with organizations who don't have values, they're starting from scratch. So what do you do? What do you how do you work with them? speaker-0: Yeah. So I I love helping organizations find alignment with their values. I think a few things help this exercise be successful. Number one, I think a recognition a recognition that most teams that are have been intact for a while have values. They're just like latent or not named. They're they're not apparent. And so I love to do exercises that involve really as many members of the team as possible. Or, you know, one of the things I'll say is with an organization, if you can't include everyone. If it's like a working group focusing on values, get diverse representation. You know, who ⁓ do you think of on your team that's really an excellent player? This is an exercise I'll help us go through. And then what makes them an excellent team player? What makes them such a rock star for this team, such a standout for this team? And as you start to name those qualities, things will surface, right? So I I often use this example of having worked with a team that had a value that was latent, but they you know, realized was a bias towards action. So when they were evaluating somebody who was like really a rock star to them versus somebody that they felt like was not a great player. It was somebody that had recently been let go. And so we didn't exercise where we said, okay, what made this person great? What made this person not a fit? And what became so clear is that this person had initiative constantly. They were always taking you know taking the ball and running with it without having to be told. And now They did a lot of other things that were positive and right as well, right? But one of the big distinguishing factors between this behavior and that behavior was this bias towards action. And so it became clear to be a fit on that team, you need to have a bias towards action. I've worked with other teams where it's a very command and control environment, you know, a high integrity, high process oriented environment. And sometimes that's critical for safety, right? And so that That mentality wouldn't work for those organizations. And so exercises like that, I think, can help draw those values out and bring them into the fork. speaker-1: Yeah. I like that because it's very real, right? There's real life examples of those values in action. Cause it's hard to start, you know, so theoretical. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's exactly right is ⁓ you know, usually the first things that come out don't stick, but we always just start somewhere, just write down what you think they are. You know, one of the other things that we'll do is say, think about a time when we're really proud as a team. What's something that we're really, really proud of? We went through this with Success Labs, you know, and talking about really the constant innovation, you know, developing a a 360 feedback software. you know, developing leadership labs, developing a lot of tools ⁓ from scratch that we saw a need, we saw an opportunity, and and we made it happen. And so that kind of like innovation and being innovative was really a a a quality that's celebrated here. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the questions that I will ask, you know, when I'm working with a team to help them get better at spotting values in action is you know, what is what is one way you saw values at work in a teammate in the past week. Or, you know, if when you do a project wrap, you talked about retrospectives and look backs, the importance of that. How did our values help us in this project and how did they hinder us? Any other questions that you would ask for people who are trying to get better at embedding that kind of spotting of values in action? speaker-1: I think I would ask for real work examples of what they've seen when ⁓ somebody has ⁓ stood out and done something exceptional. and to really pick apart what was going on there, what were the behaviors, what were the actions, what did the person not do in some cases can be easier to to talk about. But the more real that you can make it, ⁓ then the better handle that people will be will will have on, okay, what what does that really mean? And is that a value? Is it something that we haven't really stated as a value, but that we all agree is turns out to be very important? So, you know, one is on that side. ⁓ the other is to ask them ⁓ where they struggle with having difficult conversations. And what you'll find is that they some will like continue to draw on a policy book or they will i in a role play will go immediately to a write-up. or contacting HR when really that's an infrequent thing that happens. Because what I think what's happening is they're struggling to have a genuine conversation with someone about behavior or result that is not working. And so let's speak plainly and I'll have them say, well, how do you tell someone that? And I let them say it and I say, just like that. Yeah. Just like speaker-0: Plain. That's one of the things I say all the time. Say it plain. You know, ⁓ an example of this, I was working with a team and they speaker-1: It's playing. speaker-0: had a value. I'm trying to remember exactly how they phrased it, but it it it it it was it was something about respect. ⁓ let's just say the value was respect. Okay. And they had a team member that kept showing up late to meetings and they did exactly what you said. They wanted to go immediately to we're we need to bring HR in to have a I said, have you given this person direct feedback? Do they understand the expectation? And I said, why don't you try framing it in the context of the value of respect? Because what I kept hearing them say was this is so disrespectful. Right. So then saying, Look, I perceive it as a lack of respect of my time when you show up late w they were like, Can I say that? Yeah. Yeah. Why why wouldn't you say that? speaker-1: Right. Right. I I think and maybe it is because they're they're looking for a policy that backs them up when in reality I think when you talk to people, no one really likes positional authority. It's almost like, you know, why do I have to do that? Because I say so. Yeah. Nobody likes that. They wanna know why? Why is this important? You know, why can't I do that? And speaker-0: Nobody likes speaker-1: And most people understand that. I mean, there's gonna be people who are gonna dig in, of course. But for the most part, people get it because it's more honest, sincere conversation. ⁓ speaker-0: Love that. I think that's right. And I think going back to leading and change, this is why I think values-based decision making and values-based feedback and really calibrating behavior based off of values is so important because when the rules are constantly changing, nobody can keep up with the rule book, right? ⁓ you know, ⁓ policy from ⁓ like two years ago may not be relevant at all today. And so you've gotta kind of embed you know, behavior expectations through your bow. speaker-1: Yeah. And you have to embed them in a way that is ⁓ general, but not too not too general, right? With with words that are meaningful. And again, I'm going back to the concrete examples. Yeah. The more you can get people talking about specific behaviors, the more you'll get, okay, I understand that. Right. And I buy into that. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. So I'm gonna run through the the handful of things that we've talked about that you can do to embed your values in an organization. So we heard ⁓ we talked about f feedback, constructive feedback, we talked about praise and recognition, we talked about ⁓ kind of that project selection planning decision making. ⁓ you talked about physical space, putting them in your cubicle, putting them on your name badge. putting them on the walls. Like I I think sometimes that can be seen as performative, but it's really important for embedding it, right? I worked with an organization that had it on the wall with the definition underneath for each one. And then they would have ⁓ printouts of the shout outs of so that example of this is the value and this is what looked back in action with the person's picture, they would put those on the wall so people could see it ⁓ in team spaces. I loved that. ⁓ what's one place you can think of ⁓ that you've seen organizations integrate values that most people wouldn't think of. Yeah, is do you have anything outside of those handful of examples? speaker-1: I guess another example it is ⁓ buzzwords. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Say more. speaker-1: Well, I've talked about how difficult it is to have a difficult conversation to address when somebody is out of line or out of order or something like that. And if teams can adopt a simple short way of call-outs, for example. We talked about shout outs with praise. But you know, let's say somebody is misbehaving for lack of a better word in a meeting. And, you know, we don't want to throw anybody under the bus in public, but we need it to stop. And so coming up with certain phrases that you might use in a team to address maybe natural but dysfunctional behavior can be an easier way to say it. ⁓ it's so ⁓ you know, buzzwords we had it going back to my Intel days, ⁓ we had ⁓ rat hole, we had ⁓ no sidebars, and and all that and what that meant is okay, somebody's getting way too deep at to the point where we're getting off topic. speaker-0: Can you give me an example? speaker-1: And somebody only needs shout rat hole. And then everybody's like, okay, are we going down a rat hole? Let's get back to it. Or no sidelines was what typically happens. You're in a meeting and somebody thinks of something, and then suddenly they're having a discussion with their neighbor that is very important to them and somewhat germane, but it's off topic, it's off agenda. And so you say no sidebars, and people are like, ⁓ okay, that's right, let's get back to it. Yeah. So that made it very easy for anybody really to say. Let's get back to doing what we said we were gonna do without it being awkward. Right. The first time you do that or the first time it's done to you, yeah, it's a little bit okay. But when you start seeing that people are regularly doing this, even people who are at higher levels of management who should be role modeling values more than anybody else, it becomes okay, this is how we do things here. This is becomes almost like an operational philosophy. speaker-0: Yeah, it normalizes it. I love that. I worked with a company. I've never heard the phrase using them as buzzword buzzwords. I love that. I worked with a company that had an online meeting software. So our virtual meetings would be hosted kind of in this web portal. And there was a button that said tangent alert. And they would use it. They would go tangent alert. And it you did that whenever and and they would do it to the CEO. I mean, they would do it to me. Yeah. They would do it to anybody to say, look. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: You're on a tangent, you're on a rat hole. Let's, you know, refocus here. And because it was all about respect for people's time. speaker-1: And I think respect for people, because you know, when that sort of thing happens, it's because people care, right? They're highly invested in something that's going on that they want to talk about it or they want to go deeper, which is a positive, positive behavior. So it's not, ⁓ you're bad because you went down a rat hole. It's no, because we're all committed and and smart and we know a lot, of course there's going to be rat holes. And so we just have to make sure it doesn't get us. off of what we actually need to get done right now. Yeah. So it's that permission really to be a good human being, knowing that some of that behavior can be problematic depending on the situation. speaker-0: Yeah. And and to put a bow on this part of the conversation, when you see that happening, we've all been that person listening to the tangent go on and everybody you see them just kind of disconnect and feel like everybody sees that it's happening. It's when you feel that void of leadership, it feels really bad. Yes. It feels like why is nobody stepping up? Why is nobody saying anything? And it's such a relief when somebody does. And so I would say to teams that let that happen with leadership, it's just such a it's such a violation of values, I think. It's it's a not a productive work environment. It's more respectful to just rahel, you know. speaker-1: Absolutely. And it what's what's really interesting, I think, about us as humans is at first, the person who says rat hole, who says sidebar, is the one who made things awkward when when they're not, right? So if you are in this setting and somebody steps up and does say it, be on that side, right? Don't look at them like, ⁓ yeah. Right. Be on their side. Make it less awkward for the person who actually did the proper thing versus speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: what else was going on. But you know, it's it's easy to talk about it in a podcast. It's a lot more difficult to do it in real life. But practicing, starting these things out, getting together with your team and say, what are we going to do to as a team so that we're functional? ⁓ to call out normal behaviors that are going to happen but that are problematic. Yeah. And and come up with those, agree to them, post them. You know, so you have values that you post, but also post your buzzwords. ⁓ Do fun things like the on a tangent alert. Right. And it it kind of makes light of things. And and that's that's easier, right? If you can laugh at ⁓ yeah. speaker-0: That's right. It it and it because it was silly, it ⁓ it it brought levity to the situation every single time. It was like okay, so let's let's close out. What's one takeaway that ⁓ maybe the single most useful thing you think a leader could do this week to find out if their values are actually working and embedded in their organization? speaker-1: Absolutely. Right. That's fun. ⁓ I think self reflect on their own behavior. ⁓ speaker-0: So what what are a couple of questions somebody could ask themselves? speaker-1: ⁓ one question is how have I demonstrated, let pick a value. How have I demonstrated this this week? Right. What are some concrete examples of s something that I did or didn't do? And then if there's nothing, all right, you know, heal thyself. If if there are things, then okay, what's my team done? And have I given them recognition for it? ⁓ I'm a such a big fan of positive feedback and I don't think we do it enough. We don't take advantage of the power of it. Yeah. So one thing that leaders can do is check themselves. and then give some positive feedback couched in those values. I think they would be surprised at the reaction that their team member, their employee would have to that. ⁓ and I think that when they see that reaction, it'll motivate, it'll energize them to continue to do that. speaker-0: Yeah. I love that. One of the things that I used to do with my team when we were really ⁓ you know, I could tell that the values were more l latent and and not activated in the organization is I would ask the team to say, What does this value mean to you? And what do you think it looks like in action? When do you can you give me an example of where you've seen the team living this value or not living this value? Yeah. So I think those are great questions. ⁓ So thank you all for joining this conversation. ⁓ if you enjoyed it, please take the time to subscribe, follow, leave a review. And if you want more information like this, you can sign up for our newsletter at successlabs.com backslash newsletter. We give tips and advice like this at least once a month, if not more often. ⁓ and thank you, Gloria, for sharing all this great information with us. speaker-1: Thanks, Adrian. It was fun. speaker-0: Thank you all for tuning in. If this conversation was useful to you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who might use it. Leave us a review, and please subscribe wherever you're listening. You can learn more about our work at Success Labs and connect with us at Successlabs.com. We're on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Success Labs. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep leading well.