EO Thoughts Leadership Forum - Episode 016

Hello everybody and welcome to the EO Thought Leadership Forum, episode number 16. My name is Joe Apfelbaum from EO Brooklyn.

And I'm James Ashcroft from EO South Florida.

I love the way we start these things. It's like so natural, you know, like EO Brooklyn and then I don't even have to introduce you or you don't have to introduce me, it just flows.

Yeah, well, you know, this is what, 16? So I think we're getting better. It's gonna be, it's gonna be really cool when we hit like 50. So hey, we have some intro music, outro music.

Oh, definitely, definitely. We may even use I'm going to use your band's music because you have an awesome band. And speaking about bands, I want to know, James, what do core values mean to you? I speak to some small business owners and they're like, eh, core values, waste of time. And then I speak to the great businesses and I see they have core values and they're doing amazing things. Like, what does it mean to you personally? What does it mean to you in your business?

Uh, it's, it's just the guide, you know, it's, it's, it's the foundation of all decisions and actions.

But why do you need a guide? Why is that important?

I think it's just self-awareness. It's really what it comes down to for me, you know. Um, you know, it took me a while to kind of dial into my core values and to really understand them. But when I understand— sorry, Joe. So when I understand them, um, it allows me to feel comfortable in decisions, basically. You know, for example, family is one of my You know, my wife and my 3 kids. So there are times where, um, I think, oh, you know, I should be working longer hours or something along those lines. But just knowing that my family is one of my core values, that I won't put anything in front of them, keeps me in line.

That's absolutely amazing. You know, one of the things that I realized by, um, by speaking and by, by, by being in EO forums and by uniting and, and, and recently also taking moderator training to become a moderator, they said that one of the most important things that you can do in a forum is come up with core values and come up with a good constitution and a mission and vision statement. And what does— what that does is it takes away the emotion out of things. Like, if you're not living up to the core values of your company, Then it has nothing to do with how I view you or how you view me or judgment or control. The facts are the facts. If your core value is authenticity and you're not being authentic, it has nothing to do with whether I like you or not. The fact is you're not living up to the core values that we set for this organization, so you're not going to be a good fit unless you're able to do that. So it takes the emotion out of it. It's not about you. You're a great person. You just— your values don't match, so as a result, we're both not going to have fun.

Right. No, I, I completely agree. You know, um, it's, uh, it's super powerful. You know, we, we put them up in our office and we, you know, we got them printed out. We put them in a frame and everything right in the middle of our sales, uh, area there. And it's, you know, one of them is put, put the company first. So you can look at it like, here's what we don't want you to do. So, i.e., if you don't put the company first, you get fired. But then we also use it as a tool to, to, to praise people. They're like, wow, you really put the company first. You stayed late. You, you, you looked after the customer. You put the company before your immediate needs. You know? Uh, it's just a, it's a great tool.

That's, yeah, it's amazing. And also, you know, people have strengths. People have, um, things that they, that they want to live up to. Values is something very deep within us and within our organizations. That's just there. It's embedded there. And most people don't take the time. What you said about self-awareness before, Most people don't take the time to discover what they are. So what I love most about core values is that they're core and they're actually there and most people just don't take the time to discover it. So they feel like this level of like, I'm not really sure if I should be doing this, you know, lack of integrity because they're not sure, they're not clear on what their values are. And as a result, they're not living aligned with their values and they don't feel comfortable with it. But they're not sure why they don't feel comfortable in what they're doing. It just might be completely against their values. Maybe their professional, their family, what they do, their hobbies are against their values and they have to change that up because you can't change your values but you can change what you do. You can change your strengths, your skills, but your values always stay the same. So try to identify what they are if you haven't already.

Yeah, no, I think it's— I was coaching one of my forum mates. recently. Um, and he was trying to work through some issues in his company. And it really, it came down to where I said to him, I said, do you, do you have your core values lined up? Because you kind of get into these sticking points of decision-making and stuff. And he said, kind of, you know, we kind of have it. We're not really, you know. And I said, listen, I really think, you know, before you present to the forum, let's step back a bit. Like figure out your core values because then everything can stem out of that. You can make decisions based on those core values. You know, it was kind of going back to it. I think it's very hard when you start a business to have— I mean, you can have an idea from your personal side. Listen, I want this company to look like this and kind of put the culture in place. But I think the core values kind of start popping up and you kind of have to go back and evaluate them on a consistent basis. You know, so you can actually get kind of ahead of yourself and get into a high growth stage of your business. But you really need to take the time to go back and, and get those core values memorialized and shared with, with your organization, with yourself and your organization. Um, it just takes out, like you said, just takes out a lot of the, the, the emotion.

Yeah.

It takes out a lot of that subjectivity and makes it really objective. Because you're right, you can have a great, great employee working for your company, like you really like them, you think they're wonderful people, but if they just don't line up or they just don't share the vision of those core values and why they're there, they're just not going to be fit. And they're always going to kind of grate and have that friction against the personality of the company. And it'd be time for them to go, you know? So it does take out that objectivity and it's just a, just a rallying point for the company. It's, it's, it's the, it's the, the foundation of those painted pictures that we talk about, you know, visioning the company.

And you know what, another great thing about core values, uh, a coach recently told me, he said, Core values, no matter what they are, they're always good. You don't have— no one has core values of, I'm Dr. Evil. That's my core value, that I'm evil.

Right.

No one has values that are bad values. Oh, let's abuse people. Let's whatever, right? Everybody has— everyone's values are good to some degree. It's a good value. The question is, am I organized? Am I creative? Am I— do I do things fast and I'm into quantity or I'm more into quality? There's always a positive thing. that stems out of the value. The question is, what part of the spectrum do you value? And as a result, could you be aligned with the different people that you work with, both from a client standpoint, from an employee standpoint, and from yourself with the activities that you do and how you do them? So I think that it's, it's super important and people should recognize what they are individually and also collectively as a company and even in their family, in their marriage. I came up with values with my wife. I came up with values with my partner. I came up with values with myself. It's so important to understand what they are.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and as, as I get older and understand myself better, um, these core values that I have really, really locking into place, you know, um, here's a quick, you know, I think people, I think another question we can discuss here, Joe, is why don't more people have their core values all figured out, memorialized and understood? I think people tend to get a bit overwhelmed with the process.

Yeah, I think that also people are in survival mode. And like, like David Allen says, if your boat is sinking, it doesn't matter what direction you're going in.

Yeah.

Like people think it's like core values is purpose. So I don't care about my purpose right now. Let me just fix the holes in my boat so I don't sink.

Right.

But ultimately, it's not about that. This is about— this is not about why you should be fixing the holes. This will actually be the cement that fixes your holes.

Right.

People don't realize that. People think it's more of like vision and purpose and all that. It's not about that. This is like, how should I fix the holes that are— so it's not a band-aid, but that it's a permanent fix so I never have these holes to begin with?

Yeah. I mean, I challenge anyone, anyone listening to this to sit down with your partner, your wife, yourself, or whatever, right? And just spend an hour, focused hour on it. And especially if you have a business with a partner that you've been working with for a long time, you understand each other, you kind of have the same vision for the company, you can knock this out. I went through the exercise probably a year ago with one of my partners, and we just said, listen, he came to my house at 4 o'clock. My wife was nice enough to say, I'm going to make dinner for you guys, and it's going to be at 6 o'clock. I was like, hey, we have until 6 o'clock to get this done. And we sat there and we did it. What we did, we just got a yellow legal pad and we started writing down what we thought our, um, you know, perfect employee looked like, what our office felt like, what, what our service felt like, what our offerings are, and everything. Just started writing down adjective after adjective after adjective. We started circling all the ones that were together. We started crossing ones out that weren't, uh, really that important to us. And we got basically down to one page. And then we took all these words And we just kind of changed the context and we wrote out 5 sentences using as many of these words as we could. And we slowly condensed them over 2 hours until we got 5 bullet points like that. And, uh, by the time we sat down for dinner, we said, wow, this is amazing. Then, you know, I took the, the, uh, the, uh, the 5 core values. I got someone on Fiverr just to design a poster. You know, it cost me $50 to get a designer. I got that back that evening. I sent it over to Kinko's. They printed it out, picked it up next morning, took it across the street, got a framer, and walked in the office the next day with 5 core values and just got it done. And we're like, I can't believe we sat there for like 5 years reading all these great books about core values, all this stuff, and we just didn't sit down and really hammer this out. We, we kind of knew what our core values were, but we had never taken the time to actually Get together, write these things out, put them in a medium that everyone can understand, and put it on the wall. And it made a huge difference.

That's awesome. And did you put them on your website as well? If you go to—

Yeah, yeah.

What is it, Life Safety?

This is US Export Direct. I think they're safe. US Export Direct.

I'm sorry.

No, no, no, it's good. I'm sure they are. I haven't looked at my site in a while. It's US Export Direct.

Our website is ajxunion.com, and we definitely have our core values. You know, we used to have our services first. Now we just have our core values. values there, because that's really—

yeah. Yeah. So if you, if you go to our homepage and you scroll down just under the fold, you'll see our, you know, virtuous, reliable, responsible, attentive, proactive, and committed.

Amazing.

If you click on each one of those DISCs, they spin around nicely. So, um, you know, these are, like I said, I mean, all these, all these ideas and concepts that we hear about in EO, we read about, sometimes seems so esoteric. But it really takes just sitting down for an hour and just coming up with this stuff and not trying to make it perfect. Just come up with stuff. Just be 90% there. Get it down.

Get it. You can always change it later.

I always change it.

I had a guy who, who kind of did a talk about the Rockefeller Habits and how he came up with his core values. He said, man to the moon, this, that, whatever. He basically said, take a list of like, you know, 100 core values. You can find them on the internet and just circle the ones that you like. Exactly what you said. If you can, and basically create core values for now and then reassess it in 2 years, because ultimately you don't want core values that are aspiring core values. You don't want core values that are permission to play, which basically means you have to have them in order to even be in business. You want to have core values that are really custom to you and your team and who you are, and your team changes over time. So you want to make sure that your core values are current and check up every 2 years. To see what you can come up with that you can add or remove or change as times change. So for those of you that don't have core values, check to make sure that you have them personally, professionally, at home, and hopefully you'll be able to take your life and your business to the next level. This has been a wonderful EO Thought Leadership Forum, and James, thanks for doing it with us. And hopefully if you enjoyed this, feel free to comment, to share it. And to let us know what you think so that we can continue to make these episodes awesome.

Excellent. Thanks, Joe.

Bye, everybody.