Talking about values is risky territory for fear of coming across as preaching. This is not meant to preach. It’s meant to be a practical approach that helps guide your brand, much like the brand values of a product. It’s fair to say that most everyone has a set of values they believe are important in both their business and personal lives. Not everyone has taken the time to identify those which are most important. Fewer still use those core values as a screen by which important choices are made and an even smaller universe of people live their values as a daily guide or North Star.
                                       
“Oh, no.” You’re probably thinking “...not another perspective on principle-centered leadership!” I would like to try to make the case how defining and living your personal brand values can make your business life better and more effective. You will make the decision whether or not the perspective I share and many questions I pose have any value. Ultimately, you are the only one who can define what’s important, what values are most critical and whether they become the standards by which you work, communicate and support your team members at work.
 

"The achievements of an organization are the results 
of the combined effort of each individual."
                                                                                                           - Vince Lombardi

Why Define Personal Brand Values?: Have you ever identified, articulated and ranked what’s most important to you? Would you have accepted your current job if you had a defined a set of values and used them as a screen by which you selected with whom you were going to work and where you were going to spend most of your adult life? If you believe shared values and shared vision are the foundation of any high performing team, then how can you decide what team is the best fit for you if you don’t know what’s important to the team and to you? Can you be passionate about someone else’s values and vision in business? What if those values were opposite your own? Probably not, but the operative word here is “passionate.” If it’s important to you to be part of a team that achieves greatness, to impact and contribute to the greater good and to drive results, then everyone on the team has to be as passionate about the roadmap, the journey and how you get to your destination. This is where values come into play.

From my perspective, true teamwork is vital if you want to achieve greatness. Excellence is rarely achieved without it. Sustainable excellence requires it. Trust, loyalty and working in an environment that allows you to be yourself are components of teamwork. Patrick Lencioni of The Table Group describes a high performing team as one that allows each member to be vulnerable - vulnerable to the extent that each team member’s weaknesses are known. The team plays to individuals’ strengths and shores up their weaknesses. Transparency, open communication and free flow of ideas and information without any holdback encourages individual points-of-view and harnesses the intellectual horsepower of many to make any idea better. My results-driven nature also values sense of urgency or a strong bias to action: Someone once said that when Opportunity knocks, it doesn’t expect you to sit down and have lunch with it. While this blog highlights many of the values I have singled out as important to me, identifying yours is a cathartic journey only you can take.

"Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare..."
                                                                                                           - Patrick Lencioni

Trust as the Infrastructure: Trust is the foundation upon which the best teams are built. The bigger and better the foundation, the stronger the team. What does trust mean to you? What does trust mean in the context of your team dynamics? Do you trust your team members will put the interests of the company and team ahead of their own self interests? Do you fundamentally believe people want to do the right thing? Do you trust your team members’ professional expertise? Do you feel your points-of-view are thoughtfully considered? Do you consider everyone’s perspective even when it’s opposite your own? Can you have passionate debate and still respect each other when the debate concludes? Will you and your team members start rowing in the same direction - and with heart -  after that debate even when you or someone on the team is still not convinced the decision made was the right one? Can you honestly say ‘you have the backs’ of everyone on your team? Do you feel they have your back? Does your CEO or boss trust you to drive the results consistent with your position without second-guessing or micro-managing? Incredible teams and incredible individuals can answer ‘yes’ to all of these questions.

Putting Values to the Test: Every roadmap and journey has intersections where the path taken is determined by the rules of engagement. Do Trust and Integrity guide where the team and you go - or is it okay when ‘the ends justify the means’? Do you want to win at all costs or would you allow a missed opportunity if it meant keeping everyone’s values intact? If you worked with people who sacrificed their values whenever it was the expedient route, would you trust them when the chips were down?

I’m guessing Jeff Skilling of Enron and mega Ponzi scam artist Bernie Madoff think they are fundamentally honest and trustworthy people. I don’t know for sure. But I do know that if they allowed values to guide their decisions, they would not have decimated the lives of so many people. Maybe. For most of us, the decisions we make don’t generally involve billions of dollars and thousands of people. The every day decisions we make that impact the life of one person are equally important. They either add to your credibility or detract from it, but ultimately they help define your true brand values. It’s the every day decisions with which we face where a values-based approach is tested. You can define your brand values, but that definition comes to life only if you walk the talk.