Entrepreneurial Management

Now that you have your vision, it’s time to work on your core values.

The first thing you need to know is that you don’t need to hire a team of consultants to come and help you figure this out. Here’s the simple formula.

Pick three things that you, as the founder of the business, value in the people you hire.

Your values will determine the culture of your company. You don’t bring a bunch of people together and then give them values. You hire people with the values that you want in your business.

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to understand what your values are. What are the three most important things you want in employees? What do you value in an employee? Notice how we are not saying, “What do you value in a spouse or in your family?” This must be focused on what you value in someone that would work for you.

At The Life Coach School the three most important things are:

1.  Be an Example
2.  Be Fun
3.  Be Blue Collar

The value of Be an Example aligns with our vision as a company. We want our employees to come in and do their job as an example of what is possible for that job. We want them to do that job better than anyone in the Universe has ever done that job. If an employee comes in and they can barely keep up with the job, we know right away it’s not a good fit.

The value Be Fun shows up in joking around and ribbing each other during meetings and as we interact each day. We don’t want someone to come into our business and not enjoy themselves. We want work to be fun while we get a lot done.

The value Be Blue Collar means that there is no job too big for you. We want employees that know how to come in, give a full eight hours of work, and like to work more than talk about working.

Now, here’s the thing. When you hire and hold people accountable to your core values, everybody’s on the same page.

Once you have these core values, then you have to live by them. The way we do that is through quarterly reviews. Every quarter we evaluate each other on the core values. Here’s how you are doing in terms of being fun. And for example, I’ll tell some of my employees, “You’re not having enough fun. You’re way too serious and you’re way too stressed out. You’ve got to lighten up or you’re not going to make it around here.”

Whenever we let someone go, it’s because they’re not working to our core values. So core values aren’t just an idea, they are the foundation of how you hire, who you keep, how you evaluate them, how much you pay them, and who you fire.

Take the time now to think about and write out what your three core values are for your business.

Below you will see the evaluation sheets we use at The Life Coach School for our quarterly reviews: