Every company has a mission statement. Most forget it exists five minutes after it's laminated and hung on the wall. Ben and Syya break down why values, not mission statements, are what actually run a business: how you hire, how you fire, who you serve, and what you're willing to fight for.

They dig into why Disney's culture has held up for decades, why McDonald's is losing the nostalgia that built the brand, and why "don't be evil" means nothing without action behind it. Then they turn to the harder question every company is facing right now: as AI reshapes jobs, will your organization actually live up to the values it claims, or just chase margins while pretending otherwise.

Takeaways:

• The essential principle we have discerned is that individuals constitute the pivotal variable in both business and life.
• People possess an innate capacity to astound us, manifesting in both commendable and less favorable manners.
• A company's foundational value system is paramount, eclipsing the superficiality of a mission statement.
• Organizations must prioritize the cultivation of a genuine culture that aligns with their articulated values.
• In fostering an enduring organization, it is imperative to define our core values and adhere to them consistently.
• Companies that neglect their foundational values risk commoditization and losing their distinctive identity in the market.

Links referenced in this episode:

• benbaker.com
• brilliantbeammedia.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Disney
• McDonald's
• Coca Cola

If there's one thing we've learned about business and life is that people are the X factor.

They constantly surprise us, both in amazing ways and not so much.

We're Ben and Sia, and welcome to the Gnaw Business Bites podcast.

This show is all about real life, things we all deal with every day, how they relate to business, and how to make some sense out of our daily chaos.

Welcome to the show.

Foreign.

Welcome back to another episode of Non this Business Bites.

I'm Ben and this is Sia.

And this week I want to talk about why your.

Why your company needs a value system and not just a mission statement.

You know, the mission statement is wonderful.

Everybody has one, or most companies have one.

They laminate it, they write it up on the wall, and.

And people forget about it and people don't live it and people don't make decisions based on it.

But it sounds great and it looks good in an annual report and it looks good when you're making proposals.

But what really matters is that we have a value system, something that everybody in the company believes, something that everybody pays attention to, something that people sit there and say, this is our culture.

This is who we are.

This is what we really absolutely believe in.

This is what we're willing to fight for, this is what we're willing to fight against, and this is what we make our decisions based off of.

And I think that more.

If more companies took the time and actually said and say, these are our values.

This is how we hire people, this is how we fire people.

This is how we decide which clients we're going to bring on board.

This is which jobs we're going to take on.

Companies would be far better off.

So see, let's not.

This, you know, mission statements are, to me, what words?

Absolutely.

It's word soup.

Well, words have meaning, words do matter.

But if there's nothing to back up those words, then they are truly meaningless.

And that is something where I feel like theoretically, though, mission statements for companies do are rooted, rooted in altruism.

How you actually show up as a company from top down, bottom up is actually what matters.

And that's your true culture.

And that's what we're talking about, right?

Absolutely.

And I do think, again, I know we keep bringing up Disney as an example, but I will say, back in my day, and it could be, it might have been a bit more on the optimistic side because I was younger, right.

I had more of an optimistic viewpoint of life, but I really believed the story of, you know, how they told us, like, Look, Disneyland, that's where I worked at, was a stage.

We're all performers for our guests.

Our guests are paying damn good money to go into fantasy land.

They are paying money to, to just leave the world for a day inside this amusement park.

So who are you, if you want to be that way, is who are you to not give them that fantasy?

If anything, because of the stories that Disney, you know, put out, you too believed in the magic of the magic, you know, sorry, of Mickey Mouse.

I was literally in my head, I was trying to say Mickey Mouse.

But we, magic of Disney, we used.

To call him the rat.

So like, let me just, like, let me rephrase that.

But, but, but the truth of the matter is this.

Disney already had a precedent of fantasy which fed into executing on their mission statement much easier because it made sense.

And I think that was my long way of putting it, is if you're going to have a company and your mission statement is to be the coolest, hippest, you know, tech company out there, but your execution is the most, like, conservative, lack of innovative, anything, and the way you work is not, you know, putting your foot out there, then your mission statement is bs and that's what I was trying to say.

And so, you know, I have to say, whatever you might think of Disney now, people, I would say it was rooted and in its core in the beginning, very consistent, and that's why it has lasted as long as it has.

Well, I think, you know, when you, let's take Disney as an example, and there's lots of other companies we can do as well.

But it's not just the frontline workers.

It's all the way up to the executive level.

It's the people that have been there.

You know, companies that have been around and have employees for 30, 40, 50 years.

People don't stick around in companies, especially a company that is as, shall we say, mission focused and client focused as Disney, where there's a lot of pressure every single day to get things right.

People don't stick around for 30, 40, 50 years if they don't believe that the company is actually living up to its values.

Yeah, if people, you know, and no company is perfect.

Let's, let's put a caveat out there.

There's no company that's perfect.

You know, not every single leader within the Disney, you know, experience, you know, looked at Disney values the exact same way there were.

There are probably hiccups in the system, but those people get weeded out very quickly.

And those people, those people get either retrained or, or, or, or, or moved over and moved on.

But I think if organizations take a look and say, who are we?

What do we do?

Why do we do it?

Who do we do it for?

Why should they care?

And why do these people enable us to be the company that we wish to become?

You're going to have a far better chance of lasting 75, 100, 150, 200 years as an organization than your typical organization that 5, 10, 15 years later is.

It has no sense in itself, you know, And I think we need to, we need to really concentrate on that if, if we really want to have longevity as an organization.

So I'm gonna, I'm about to like, give some free consulting advice to McDonald's, for example.

So I think this is a, a perfect situation where there, this brand is international and for whatever, whatever good, bad, ugly and different people.

McDonald's has.

What's that called when you are nostalgia about it, because you got people that are older who remember back in the day of the burgers costing 5 cents and 25 cents and it just being a, the, just the idea of having food within minutes, like, was such a foreign concept back in the day, right.

So there's going to be some level of nostalgia for that now.

Fast forward to today.

They, they have a branding challenge right now because the assumption is fast food is inherently unhealthy.

Their CEO going on, which I thought was an absolute PR disaster of him eating his lunch and taking a little bit of a bite, and even his face couldn't even show him enjoying this burger or whatever the heck it was, new burger that was coming out.

And I think this is where if McDonald's is my free advice, if McDonald's wants to pull back and get that nostalgia again, my suggestion to them is go out to the community because it was always about the kids playing a game and being like, you did a good job.

You won your game.

Everyone's going to McDonald's to celebrate the game.

And then at that point, it wasn't so much going to McDonald's and eating a burger, it was hanging out with your buddies after a game.

And those are the memories.

And oh, wait, it happens to be the situation of you're eating or whatever, you know, you know, and, and it just happens to be the backdrop of it.

All right?

And they're not doing that now because I don't know why, but that's my free advice to you guys is.

And it doesn't have to be huge.

It could just be a few really good like moments like, again, like Coca Cola.

I'd like to teach the world to sing.

There are gen zers who actually know that song still.

Why, yes, it can.

It can sing the song by heart.

Because there's a nostalgia around it and the messaging around it is good and positive.

So again, it.

I'd like to teach the world to sing had nothing to do with.

I'd like everyone to drink carbonated caramel sugar water.

Like, no, that's not what it is, people.

So anyway, that's just my unsolicited advice I would give to McDonald's is pull.

Give us some memories.

Like bring back that, evoke that and you will see a natural.

I won't say turnaround, but you will.

You will get the next generation right, get the general.

Because if the disease don't want you,.

You know, and I love, I love what you're saying because, you know, you look at the burger wars, I mean, there's, there's all sorts of things, but you look at the burger wars, they all look and feel the same.

It's your, your burgers are going to cost you about the same amount of money.

Your drink's going to cost you about the same amount of money.

Your service is about the same.

And if you closed your eyes and walked into one of these places, you probably couldn't tell the difference and know which restaurant you were in.

If somebody just ordered, ordered your food for you and put it in front of you and you just had to eat it.

And there isn't that same culture, there isn't that same set of values that isn't.

There isn't the same sense of self of who we were, who we are and who we want to be as an organization.

And I think a lot of it comes down to the thought that they're ruled by people that are far more worried about stock prices and quarterly reports than they are worried about, as you say, the nostalgia and what people, what brings people in the door they're so worried about, you know, McDonald's is so worried about that, that one to four o' clock time frame where they weren't capturing that thing because Starbucks and Tim Hortons were taking over that thing.

Because people just wanted a quick drink and a snack so they added something to the menu and therefore it's going away from who they are.

Because all of a sudden, when you try to appease everybody, you appease no one.

Yeah.

And that's what your values end up being.

Who are you truly trying to serve?

Who is your audience?

Why do people come after you, you're right.

When it comes to McDonald's, we went after hockey games, we went after soccer games, we went after, you know, you got, you know, at the end of the, the end of the week or the end of the school semester or whatever, and it was, it was, it was a, it was a reward.

And I remember Hamburglar and I remember, you know, Ronald McDonald and you know, and all the other characters.

And those became part of the value and the part of the system and what differentiated in the story of who McDonald's was.

And it was the memories that you created and the memories that they enabled you to create.

You know, going out there with your girlfriend, your, your first date as a girlfriend.

Take, you know, when you got your car, you took your car the first time through the drive thru with your, with all your friends.

You know, all of those nostalgic ideas of, of what tie people to a brand are dissipating and they're, they're moving away from that.

And I think, as you said, I think it's sad and I think what it's doing is, it's just leading to brand commoditization where they all look, smell and feel the same.

And there's no reason for me to go to Burger King or Wendy's or McDonald's.

They're all the same.

So who cares?

Whoever's closest gets, gets my, you know, when I'm, when I got the hanger pains, they're the ones who get my business and they may not get it tomorrow.

I look.

So I know we went to retail and fast food and all that stuff.

You guys, this applies very much to any business today, any corporate space, because when you think about it, and again, I'm doing the analogy because it's easy, which is, you know, people are complaining about McDonald's even automating, where you don't even go up to a counter anymore.

You just pick and choose your own stuff and then food gets chipped out.

I mean, they're literally talking about no human McDonald's altogether.

Right?

That's coming down the pipe, right?

Or already there.

We are there, already there.

Like, we know that, you know, AI is taking jobs.

We knew this.

It should not be a surprise to anybody and it shouldn't be a shocker if it happens to be in your A and field.

Question is, for you as humans, is, is okay, you know, AI is optimizing a lot of tasks.

Are you going to evolve and find a way that you can still be relevant and still contribute to the company or are you just going to fight it tooth and nail and just say, I'm going to do this until I get fired.

Right.

But a good company, if their mission statement really does mean we're about family, we are about growing our, you know, business as a family, blah blah, blah, like we protect and trust and love our peoples and whatever BS HR friendly mission statement is out, then put your money where your mouth is.

We know this.

My question and challenges is how much are you open to helping your current employment team?

Yes, we know there's going to be layoffs in some capacity because there might be such massive duplication that it's redundant.

But how do you take that redundant workforce that do have the skill sets, do have some intelligence that maybe you work it around?

Because just because you have one task filled doesn't mean it replaces it entirely.

Cars did not completely remove horses, right?

Like there are definitely use cases that still apply.

Trains did not replace automobiles or buses didn't replace automobiles.

They're all still there.

Plane strains automobiles, right?

Like it's still all a key component.

Ships still very much function in our community or not community, society that is today.

So find that niche as a company is as you evolve, how do you reallocate your resources and can you train them into that?

Because right now I think it's so bleak when people hear about company mission and they're like, yeah, our job is to save the world.

Or was it Google that said don't be evil.

How about trying not to and lays, then lays off thousands of people.

How about try not to be evil and not take all our data and, and sell it to government.

Okay, wait, sorry, sorry.

That's.

Let me put the tinfoil back.

But, you know, I think we need to and you know, come to the end of this.

But it comes down to humans acting humanely.

It all comes down to organizations, whether they're large organizations, small organizations, whatever sit there going, okay, it's not human in the loop, it's technology in the loop.

Humans have to drive the situation.

People buy, humans buy from humans.

Humans trust humans.

Humans want to, want to deal with other human beings.

Yes, technology is a wonderful thing and it's going to make our lives better, but it shouldn't be allowed to drive the bus.

And companies that have the values of sit there and say our humans are the ones that are the ones that are making our company the best things.

How do we utilize technology to make our humans lives better?

Is a different situation as how do we maximize profit by getting rid of humans and focusing merely on technology.

And if that technology chef makes our customers life more of a hassle, we don't really care because we're making more money.

So we need to sit there and say what are the values of our organization?

Who are we truly trying to serve?

Why are we serving them?

What value are we trying to put out of the marketplace?

And where do we want to be 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 years down the road and be able to move towards that as an organization keeping the human element in, in control.

Is it always going to be the most profitable?

Maybe it is.

We, we still haven't figured out what, what AI is truly going to cost us when we when, when it comes to, you know, when you have to buy tokens.

We still haven't figured out what the true cost of an AI technology is.

But what we need to do is figure out how do we become a human based organization.

Could agree more, sir.

Let's wrap it up.

You know what, I'm Ben.

I'm Sia and we'll see you soon.

Hey, hey.

Hey.

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