In this live conversation, Sam Silverstein and Mike Domitrz explore why many organizations struggle to make their stated purpose and values meaningful. They share anecdotes of companies that display values on walls or business‑card size cards yet fail to live them, highlighting the gap between knowing values and acting on them. They argue that having too many values dilutes impact and advocate for a concise set of core, non‑negotiable values that are truly embodied by leadership. The hosts describe a "values discovery" process that helps organizations identify authentic values, then embed them through daily rituals such as starting or ending meetings with value discussions, storytelling, and making values part of hiring and firing decisions. Real‑world examples, like Southwest Airlines’ fun‑focused culture and a bank featured in Sam’s book Non‑Negotiables, illustrate how living values shapes culture, influences external perception, and ultimately drives the bottom line. They stress that leaders must hire for value fit, fire those who violate core values, and hold top performers accountable to both performance metrics and cultural alignment. The conversation concludes with a plug for Sam’s book and an invitation to join their daily live sessions.
Chapters
Hey, it's Mike and Sam. And we're here to talk about building accountability and mutual amazing relationships, building an amazing organizational culture, growing as individuals, growing as teams, being the best we can possibly be. Mike, you sent me an email this morning. I love your emails and your texts in the morning because you always find these great articles. What'd you find this morning?
Yeah, so this morning we found an article in Forbes that It was talking about the importance of values and purpose for an organization. And Sam, which I know you love this part, who actually knows them? Who's actually living by them?
Yeah, boy, isn't that a great question? You know, I've worked with clients and we find their values all over the place. I've been with leadership teams in conference halls where they have their values on the wall right outside the, in the vestibule. And when we walk in, I say, what are your values? And nobody knows what the values are. I've been in organizations where they had them printed on a plaque and they were hanging in the men's restroom wall. But if you ask somebody, I have no idea why they were there. But if you ask somebody, nobody knows where the values are. You can go to the website. They're all over the website. But then nobody knows what the values are. So my question is, what good do those values serve if nobody knows what they are?
Absolutely. I want to say hi to Haley. Often we love the fact that you join us, Haley. So thank you for that. Love it.
Absolutely.
Haley knows the example I'm about to give is some organizations. I know Haley knows the organization. There are organizations I work with that literally everybody has to have them memorized, Sam. Everybody has to be able to say them at the split of a second. And yet when I ask for examples of them living them, like examples of, hey, do you do this when this happens? And they'll say, that's none of my business. then that is a complete violation of that memorized value you have up here. So, there's a big difference in knowing them and living them and believing in them and being part of your heart and soul.
Yeah, exactly. I had a— I have a client that I worked with for many years and their values were, they probably had about 25 of them and they printed them on a business card. They were on this little card, business card size. Everyone carried them in their wallets. You could stop anyone. What are your values? Pull out your wallet. They pull the card out. They read the values off. Everything looked great. But the reality was they didn't know how to live those values. Those values were not in them as people. And then they were not in the decisions they were making. And if they're not in you and it's not in your decision, it's not in your action. And those values in that situation were not being lived nearly as fully as they could have been.
Well, and that's a couple of things we need to discuss there. Too many values, right? Because typically, if you have a long list of values, you're duplicating almost always, and they're not all true values. You and I have talked about this. If somebody is saying that this is value, but they're not living by it, I love Sam. You say, "Well, you're flat out a liar." That's what you'll say because you're you're they love hearing that. What's that?
They love hearing that.
Oh yeah, exactly. And so, I would say it's what what is true to our heart and soul that I would stand up for. conflict for? That's when you know you have a value. When somebody violates it, no matter what position they are over me, no matter what position I am over them, I will honor the value. When I am most challenged, I will honor the value.
Well, exactly. And while, you know, when, when I work with an organization, I lead them through what we call a values discovery, which is really discovering what their values are. They end up with all, all sorts. It could be 7, it could be 9, it could be 11, it can be 13. I will tell you, one of my case studies that I wrote a book about, Non-Negotiable, was a bank that had 20 values. And let me tell you something. They live those values. The reason the title of the book is Non-Negotiable is because their values are non-negotiable. And while it is more difficult when there are more, the reality is, are the values being talked about by leadership? Are the values always in play, in conversation? Are we finding examples of when the values are being lived? And then are those examples, those stories becoming lore throughout the organization? If every meeting starts with a conversation about a value or ends with a conversation about a value, then everyone in the organization knows that these are not simply words on a piece of paper or on the wall, but this is important to leadership. And only when people believe that the values are important to leadership do the values become important to them.
Absolutely. Do you remember in the 2000s, everybody knew Southwest Airlines because their value was to go to extraordinary levels of customer service. So they did ridiculously They put somebody in the luggage racket and surprise you as you open the thing. They did wild stuff. But why? Because they were living their value.
They valued fun. They valued fun.
It became legend because they lived their value.
So what happens is those values then define what the culture is for the organization. And when they're really working, not only does that culture impact the lives of everybody working for the organization, but the culture permeates society. So, like the example you just gave, you and I as frequent flyers who like live on an airplane up until this point in time.
Yeah, I was gonna say, not now.
Sidebar. Yeah. You know, we feel the culture. And that's really what happens is the culture breaks through the internal walls of the organization to where clients feel the culture, suppliers feel the culture, the community feels the culture. And when you have an amazing culture and it's permeating outside of the organization than it is really producing for the organization. And that's, that's going to show up on the bottom line.
Yeah. And you have to hire to it, right?
And fire from it.
Correct. That's right. You don't bring somebody in and say, we're going to mold them to our culture. You have to hire someone who's there, who is bringing that belief, that core value with them. And that's a huge difference.
Exactly. And so one of the things that I always teach my clients is that when you're interviewing, your questions need to be designed to show evidence that your values have been in these people's lives in the past. So you want to see traces of those values showing up in those people. Now, that doesn't mean that they're on a scale of 1 to 10, that they're a 10 at living the value. You can help them be better. The environment can help them be better. That's great. But if the value isn't already theirs, if there isn't evidence of living that, then it's going to be very difficult for them to come into the culture and A, be successful, and B, contribute to the culture rather than take away from it.
Yeah, what Hayley's saying here about that, Sam, is right on, which is when you don't have consistency of values across the board, one leader has these, one leader has these, and you're not, you're not meshing, you're overlapping, you're crashing on top of. And you get a lot of conflict because they're not blending. They're actually separating. They're different. And people, people get confused. Who am I following? You say this, but they say that.
That's a failure of leadership at the highest level. Because leadership at the highest level has the right to say, these are our values, and we're going to live them. And we're going to live them to the level of non-negotiable. And if you're not living the values, I'm going to let you go. No matter how much you produce, no matter what your job title, No matter what your level of productivity, that is not more important than the values. And as soon as you allow someone to stay in your organization that's not living the values, it's no longer your value.
Yes. I, when I'm talking to an organization and, you know, I'm all about building those mutually amazing relationships by daily choices of respect. When I'm teaching that, I'll get some areas of him. But what about the one who just doesn't care about the rest of us? But they're a star performer. What about this? And I said, then they're not a star performer because you've defined star performer purely by one measurement like sales or this, but you forgot your values is the key of what a star performer is. So how do they perform in your values and how do they perform over here, which you hired them for? Because you hired them for their values. So that's the piece people forget. And the moment they say to me, but if we lose them, I'll say, Imagine how much more empowered everyone else will be a year from now when the culture truly is what you say it is.
Absolutely. Because what happens then is it creates that environment where people just love to be. And if they love to be there, they'll work harder. And when you let that individual stay that's not living the values, nobody wants to work with them. There's siloed communication, teamwork breaks down, and it's going to have a negative impact on the bottom line. Leaders that are so focused on the bottom line that are afraid to give a top performer financially up will always end up short-sighted making decisions instead of taking the long view and building the most successful organization they could.
Yeah, you're imprisoned by another person. That's what happens. You're imprisoned. And we don't want to be imprisoned.
So, we got to start living our values. We need to know what they are. We need to identify them. We need to live them. We need to protect them. And build an amazing culture.
For everybody watching, if you haven't yet, you want to get Sam's book Non-Negotiables. Yeah, I'm plugging because it's a great book. It's all about this actually. It's living this as a company. I love the Happy State Bank. And so it's a great story. Get it. For everybody watching, we want to make sure you know you can find us live every day, 1 o'clock right here, Central Time. It's youtube.com/samsilverstein or youtube.com/sam Center for Respect. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you tomorrow.
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