This is part 1 of a 5-part series on what it means to lead thru values.

Your values and the culture you’re creating around them communicates to your partners, clients, vendors, volunteers, staff, board members:

 What you can expect every time you work with us. Things like:

• Our rapid response time
• Our goal to deliver an unmatched quality of products and/or services
• Our commitment to friendliness & professionalism by every person at every level in every department
• We follow thru on promises. (I once had a client tell his team, “If we just deliver on what we promise, we’ll be better than 90% of our competition.” And he was right.)

Your competitive advantage is deeply rooted in your culture

Your values (and the culture you’re creating around them) tells your partners, clients, vendors, volunteers, staff, board members:

• Who you are, what you do, and why you’re the best.
• This is what you can expect from us every time you work with us.

Your values must be:

Personal – they connect with every member of the team in a deeply meaningful way

Corporate – this is how we make decisions, this is how we recruit, this is who we hire, this is how we treat our employees, this is how we take care of customers

Defining – they define your competitive advantage

Don’t miss this:  Culture exists whether you pay attention to it or not.