8 ways to put your values into practice
How you do things on your team matters as much as what you do.
“YeeeUUUUSSSSS. We’re stickin’ with Ficken!”
My mother cheered in the living room like the players on the screen could hear her. Then she proceeded to do some type of dance that doesn’t require one to leave their armchair to get their groove on. It was a moment.
I asked, “Stickin’ with what now?”
“Ficken!” she replied, eyes a flame. The fire fizzled at the apparent lack of recognition on my face. “The kicker.”
About ten years ago, Sam Ficken had a hard go as the kicker for the Penn State Nittany1 Lions football team. In his first season, he became a household name in Pennsylvania and the subject of Twitter torrents after he missed four field goals and didn’t get an extra point during Penn State's 17-16 loss to Virginia.
Ficken ended up in the position when the previous kicker got transferred — a transfer that also meant Penn State didn't have the option to put Ficken back on the bench.
The team and the community decided to embrace Ficken. Students made posters to hold in the endzone that read “Stickin’ with Ficken.” They rattled them as hard as the cheerleaders shook their pom poms when his kicks connected. The coaches believed in him, and the team helped Ficken improve his technique. In the season finale against Wisconsin, Ficken’s 37-yard field goal in overtime got them the points they needed to win the game.
In many ways, these choices reflect the Nittany Lion’s values, namely that it isn’t about glory for any one player. It’s about the team.
.
What are values?
Values define how you — specifically — do things as a business. They function as a filter for behavior.
Because values are a filter for behavior, communicate them as such rather than as abstract ideas. For example, if you value collaboration, express it as a behavior you want your team to exhibit: “We collaborate.”2 Then, add details that make it clear what that value looks like in practice within the context of your business.
You can also include what a value does not look like so your team gets both sides of the bumper guard, and you limit any unintended behavior. For example, if your value is “We collaborate,” you may add that collaboration does not mean the client calls all the shots.
.
Here are 8 approaches to practicing your values
.
1. Take a different stance
Most people believe they need to “hold people accountable” for their values to exist beyond the page. This belief likely finds its roots in old assumptions about work, and it doesn’t serve teams today. By definition, accountability puts people in a position of inquiring into other’s behavior and those on the receiving end of an inquiry on the defensive. This approach can easily devolve into a witch hunt, and the witch hunt into an ideological purity test, depending on how you defined your values.
Instead of focusing on accountability, expect individuals to be responsible. This behavior is essential to establishing the trust every team requires to work together. It also emphasizes the reality that putting values into practice requires team members to make choices about the actions they take — and how they take them — every day.
.
2. There’s only one team
Many businesses talk about their departments and working groups as teams. Football understands that this division is both false and unproductive. You only have one team — and you’re all playing for it.
You contribute to the team individually. Many of your contributions come from executing work on your own. You also contribute in groups when you gather to share information, put the pieces together, and make choices.
But much like Penn State, you can’t blame your failures — or your wins — on one kicker or even on the offensive or defensive line. Your team wins and fails together as one team. That’s why we say, “Penn State lost to Michigan State.”
3. You can’t kick anyone off the team
When you step into the stadium to play a football game, you need all the people on your offensive and defensive lines. Your business works the same way. As a member of the team, assume that you need everyone you work with to show up and play well.
When you assume you need everyone and their contributions matter, it’s much easier to be responsible for yourself because you know the team depends on you. You’re also more motivated to help your fellow team members improve3 because, well, you’re all in this together. Stick with Ficken.
.
4. Practice at the play level
Most football teams develop a set of plays they can deploy in a game. Instead of hoping your team members find some way to deploy your values in their work, set your team up for success by designing your workflow, guidelines, and other systems to align with your values so you practice them by default.
For that to work, it’s critical to onboard new team members with context. Don’t simply walk through the steps; tell them why you chose each of these steps and why you do them the way that you do them.
You can also layer in micro-practices. Unlike your workflow and guidelines, which exist at a business-wide level, micro-practices exist at the individual level. One of the best micro-practices you can adopt is to ask questions.
.
5. Ask questions
You’ll ask better questions if you give your fellow team members the benefit of the doubt and assume they showed up today and played the best they could.
The most important thing to ask about is context. In many cases, your fellow team members may think they are practicing the values; they may simply see things differently than you do. For example, if your team member proposes a solution you don’t think aligns with one or more of your business’s values, instead of saying, “That doesn’t align with our values,” or worse, “What you’re saying doesn’t align with our values,” (Yikes. So accusatory. So personal.) ask, “Can you talk me through how you think this aligns with our values?”
By discussing their reasoning and yours, you’ll come to a clearer understanding of each other and likely a better way to move forward.4
.
6. Lean on your coaches
The leaders of your team serve as coaches. They’re not referees to break apart disputes or decide who was right and who was wrong.
Strength and conditioning coaches in football demonstrate each exercise. Business leaders do the same. They should show you how to practice the business’s values through their actions and by explaining how their choices align with those values.
They should also provide learning opportunities for team members to build the skills necessary to practice the values. (In fact, the learning opportunity can be a form of practicing one or more of your company’s values.)
Strength and conditioning coaches also provide support during the exercise by encouraging you and taking the weight off your shoulders if you can’t lift it anymore. Business leaders reinforce that their teams can put their values into practice and recognize when the team does this well. They also make the tough calls so team members don’t have to carry that burden.
What are the tough calls? Well, based on what I’ve written, you may think you’re permanently stuck with everyone you hired — including bad apples who simply don’t play well with others.
That’s not true. Your culture is defined as much by the behavior you cultivate as by the behavior you tolerate. Leadership owns removing people from the team who don’t work well within the boundaries of the business's values or who otherwise create an undesired environment (a.k.a. treat people like shit).
Leaders can often limit the number of times they have to make this tough call by hiring for values so people come in inclined to thrive. They can also offer support to help people gain the skills or understanding they need to work in alignment with the values. But at a certain point, leaders need to be comfortable saying, “This isn’t the right team for you.”
7. Accept that you’ll step out of bounds
Even when everyone does their best to put the company values into practice, you will step out of bounds or downright fumble the ball. That’s why we practice our values: even the team that wins the Superbowl shows up next season for practice.
When you step out of bounds, dust yourself off and recommit. Learn from the missed passes and the fumbles. Set up routine moments — both business-wide and as an individual — to check in on your business’s values and calibrate accordingly. In so many cases, the gap between the words on the page and how you practice those words in your work comes down to losing sight of the words on the page.
While you want to learn from the fumbles, don’t keep a record of every bad pass your team members threw. Once you reflect, learn, and apply the learnings — move on.
.
8. Show, don’t tell
Trying to tell a football player how to throw better won’t get you far.5 Football teams record themselves and review the tapes so they can see what they’re doing well and what they can do better.
Your business can do similar things. First, write your business’s values as behaviors followed by illustrative descriptions. Then, use examples of real people doing real things. These examples can double as a way to recognize your team members, but sometimes, that overshadows walking through what happened as an illustrative example. Consider separating recognition from showing how someone on your team practices your values in their work.
You can also consider including illustrative practices in your business. For example, Amazon had a value about frugality. They created desks from doors and saw horses in the early days to practice that value and maintained the practice to illustrate it6 long after they could have maintained frugality with something less visible.
.
The specifics make you, you
There’s a reason a lot of teams emphasize the need to “live their values.” They know their values shouldn’t only be words on paper but part of how their team works every day.
Strategic businesses choose not only every action they take but how they take those actions. The how is defined by their values. How you do what you do should deepen the value you deliver.
Moreover, when you practice your values consistently, you tell people who you are and what it’s like to be part of this team. You’ll more easily attract people who will thrive on your team — and deter those who won’t.
The same is true for the people you serve. Practicing your values shows them not only who you are, but that you get them. That’s how they find you in the crowd and know you’re their kind of people. Before you know it, they’re following you in preseason and ultimately screaming in the stands because they want you to win.
Because when you win, they win.
.
[1] For years, as a kid, I thought it was Nitley, not Nittany. I may even say it wrong when I record.
[2] “We collaborate” still doesn’t quite get you where you need to go. First, it isn’t specific enough to your team. Think about the specific words you choose and what it looks like on your team instead of someone else’s team. Second, the more you can make the value statement memorable, the better. As a better example, consider: “We put in an extra 15 minutes.” It tells me about the behavior and even mentality of the business. It’s also intriguing enough to get me to read the illustrative description.
[3] I have run into teams who are content to simply bitch. They seem to relish in their problems and would struggle to know how to exist without constant complaining. This is a culture. They value bitching. This is not a place I encourage you to work.
[4] Sometimes, you have to address misalignment after the fact. Questions are still your friend, but you need to frame the conversation first. For example, “XYZ didn’t seem to align with our values. Specifically [describe how]. How we do things here matters. How can we do this differently the next time?” Notice it’s all about the we because you’re one team.
[5] I have this mental picture of a coach awkwardly trying to describe something, not having the words, and then when the player tries to do what the coach described, the coach yells, “Not that left. The other left!” And then the poor player trips themselves.
[6] Or so I read somewhere once upon a time.
[*] If a behavior is table stakes for being in business, like communicating honestly or taking actions within the confines of the law, there’s probably no need to formalize it in a value
.
.
⊗ I’m Katie. I’m the mastermind behind MatterLogic™, the only system for running a business in the value economy. I’m an essentialist thinker, Entrepreneur contributor, thoughtful speaker, and jargon slayer. I shift your focus by asking “What’s the point?” Connect with me on LinkedIn and subscribe to WTP to get more of my perspective. Have a terrific day.
.