If you find yourself in a meeting with me, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll hear me talk about core values before we wrap everything up. That’s because I constantly refer back to the core values
of my business, which happen to mirror my personal values, when dealing with conflict and making important business decisions with my co-owner and team. Having a strong set of core values in my business is why I feel confident hiring employees for my business. I often hear agency owners talk about their concerns related to hiring their first employee. They don’t feel confident unless they are directly involved in every process, and they can’t imagine someone else making the decisions the same way they would. I hear you. Letting go is hard for us entrepreneurs, but I’m here to encourage you to do it once you have done the hard work of identifying, testing, and committing to the core values that define you and your business. Believe it or not, having strongly defined core values paves the way for freedom in your business: the kind of freedom that lets you get out of the day to day operations and allows you to take on new challenges, delegate, grow, and expand.
Yes, core values are actually useful.
Defining core values, if done wrong, can seem like a meritless business exercise. If done right, they will guide employee decision making and ensure that employees take similar paths to problem solving as you would (which ultimately frees you from having to do everything on your own!) It took my company, SmartSitting, a long time to nail down our core values (and we still review them every quarter and tweak them when we feel it’s necessary). Our employees are trained to use them in every situation. At SmartSitting, we are supportive, adaptable, accountable, genuine, and professional. We run everything we do through this lens and if it doesn’t fit, we throw it out. If your core values aren’t serving you or your employees when making difficult or important decisions, then it’s time to re-evaluate whether they are the right core values for your business.
Guide decision-making with core values.
Here’s a real life example of core values at work: we work in a market with a lot of extremely creative and talented people who also happen to be nannies and caregivers. I remember a time when one of our employees needed support in navigating a tricky situation: a great nanny candidate was about to fail their social media screening due to a controversial and provocative social media presence, thanks to their participation in some very expressive and boundary pushing Avant Garde art. Without our core values, the action our employee took might have looked like this:
“Thank you for your interest in our agency. Unfortunately, we’re unable to work with you at this time. We wish you the best in your search.”
Not only would we have lost a great candidate, we could have offended the candidate or created the impression that we are an impersonal company that doesn’t help people with their unique situations. However, choosing which steps to take looks totally different when you look through the lens of your particular core values. In our case, the response looked more like this:
“Hello! We see that you are a creative individual deeply involved in the art community and we want to help you get a great child care position that will give you the ability to continue pursuing your passions (core value: supportive). We wanted to let you know that we might encounter some families who are uncomfortable with a few of the images you have online (core value: genuine). We’re happy to discuss your art with families and make sure that any family we do recommend you to will be comfortable with your social media presence (core value: accountable). If you’re comfortable taking down any of the more controversial photos, that could help open the door to more families, but that is at your discretion (core value: adaptable), since we don’t want to misrepresent you in any way or take away from who you are (core values: professional, genuine, adaptable, accountable, supportive).
Teach core values early and often.
Once you’ve established the core values of your business, test them out on your own. Refer to them daily to make decisions and examine how they do and don’t serve you. It’s okay to change them until you have the right combination. Use them when you evaluate potential employees during an initial interview and follow up on them when you talk to their references. Once you’ve hired someone, introduce the core values to them on day one, and illustrate their practical use by walking through decisions together and sharing stories of successes (and failures). With this approach, you can confidently grow your team knowing they are acting as an extension of you.
You may never be able to teach someone to write an email or have a conversation with a client exactly the way you would, but you can definitely teach employees to think through situations using your core values lens, and make the same (or similar) decisions that you would make, leading to similarly wonderful outcomes. Always remember to lead by example and you’ll be on your way to growing your team.
Suzie Zeldin is the COO and co-owner of SmartSitting, a nanny agency and corporate back-up care company serving New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Boston, and Chicago. She serves on the APNA board as the Membership Chair and enjoys connecting with and supporting other agency owners and entrepreneurs.