Beverlee Rasmussen CEC PCC 
Recently while planting flowers in my front garden I come face to face with a RAT! A big fat ugly long-tailed filthy rat.
I knew what it meant. My happy rat had been feeding near our food waste can and effective immediately, I felt forced to break city rules and change the way I dealt with this type of waste.
So what does this have to do with values? Since this incident, I have been putting my compostable waste in the garbage can and this has increased both the volume and number of plastic bags going into the landfill from my home.
Values Help Drive Decisions
Something inside me cringes every time I tie up another plastic bag full of things than I know can be recycled. Because of the rat, I am seriously compromising my values around protecting the environment. I can feel this compromise in my body. I don’t like it and it is driving me to come up with other solutions. (I will keep you posted.)
Also this same week, I was given the opportunity to score better on an application if I made one small little white lie. In this case there was NO compromise. Telling the truth has been a long held absolute value of mine and my life would have to literally be on the line to not be honest.
Do you see how values drive behavior?
“It is not hard to make decisions once you know what your values are” Roy E. Disney
Design Your Business Around Your Values
Creating an environment built on your values is the best way as a business owner to attract and lead others including team members, customers and investors.
[Tweet “How to create a business based on your values #getprofitable”]
Here’s another real life example. This one is from a local roofer who lined up his business practices with his values. By building his company decisions, he ended up with the company he’d always imagined running.
- Family: We put relationships first, treating our employees like family and building our company to strengthen all our families.
- Integrity: We’re honest in all our actions, transparent pricing and always following through on our word.
- Service: We are responsive, delivering high quality and friendly service. We make sure our customers are informed and comfortable with whatever plans are made to serve them.
- Safety: Our zero tolerance for drugs and no-compromise expectations to follow all safety systems, has given us a reputation for being a respected sought after roofing company.
- Teamwork: Our crews depend on each other and the leadership team to be safe and provide a great customer experience.
Use Your Values to Lead in Your Business
Values integration takes time. It happens with one clearly-defined values-driven system at a time.
Use your core values to build an organization that you love, that you are proud to own. Use your values to lead the way.
As for that rat, he valued the peanut butter on the trap and I’m going back to composting. (Hopefully with a better system than before.)
How do your values show up in your business? Where are they missing from your business systems?
