‘Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.’
Whether it is your values, your vision, your mission, your purpose, or (to coin an old phrase) your USP, etc…
Chatting with your team, making some decisions, writing them down and working on the more intangible parts of the business can make an incredible difference towards performance.
Here are 5 quick reasons why…
1. Values help inform the big, close-call decisions.
For most leaders, the answers to most decisions are straightforward. It is the close-call choices which proves the most challenging and time-consuming. Having a clear and concise set of values makes the decision-making process easier and faster. Necessary for any growing organisation.
2. Knowing your USP amplifies value for customers.
Customers buy what you do but pay more for having it done in a certain way. Whether it’s the speed of a pizza delivery, the reliability of an internet provider or the improved product knowledge of retail staff. The benefits of knowing why you’re good and margin small, concentrated and tangible improvements along the way has an amplifying effect on perceived value.
3. Gives management more autonomy.
A clear set of written values gives management a clearer idea of what is required in those rare but troublesome moments when things happen that shouldn’t – for example dealing with a particular type of customer complaint or a rare staff issue or some kind of system breakdown. In each and every occasion when a policy/procedure will not cover it – and they can’t cover everything – values are much better for empowering staff to know how to behave in a certain way.
4. Purpose driven companies are more memorable.
Purpose-driven companies with a clear set of values or recognisable company culture stand out more in the marketplace period. Whether it is Brewdog’s punk attitude, Amazon’s customer-centricity or Tesla’s commitment to cleaner energy. Standing for something is much more likely to make your brand more memorable with customers, suppliers and staff. Particularly important in this noisy world.
It also removes the need for so much marketing. When your product or service is the star – you don’t need to promote so aggressively. How many memorable ads have you seen for Amazon? Or Tesla? Or Google?
5. Helps with marketplace disruption.
Getting back to basics and thinking about who you are, what you do and why you are doing it in the first place can be the one of the most powerful things you do. Clearly knowing that information gives you the opportunity to re-imagine your product/service, where to invest your time and resources, who to serve and more critically who not too… This is much more true with an ever-changing business landscape.
Formalising company culture is something that I have done many times for both my own companies and some of our clients with the loft, it’s one of those exercises that is just so much fun, if you’re looking for some help to do it with your own organisation – please don’t hesitate to get in touch…
Benedetto
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