Defining & Rolling Out Core Values | with Margaux Gillman

Understanding what's important to an organization helps us as humans connect to the other people that we're working with, the work that we're doing. Right. It helps to provide that purpose. And so I think that's a really critical why, from my perspective.

Hi and welcome to Work Smart, a podcast from Social Talent. It's all about becoming more work smart. Hi, I'm Johnny Campbell, CEO and co founder of Social Talent. And this week we're talking about how do you define and roll out core values in an organization? And joining me is Margo Gilman from Job.com let's do this. Margo, you're very welcome to the podcast. Joining us from Austin, Texas. Could you please give our audience a little bit of background of yourself, tell me about who you are, what you work as and why this is an important topic for you.

Yes, hello. Thank you for having me, Johnny, and excited to talk about one of my favorite things, Core Values and launching those and embedding those in an organization. So Margo Gilman based in Austin, Texas. As Johnny said, I am Currently the SVP of People and Culture for Job.com Job.com is a tech enabled staffing and search organization. So we are really focused on utilizing AI to help match people to great work opportunities. Something I'm very passionate about. So really enjoy what I get to do@job.com which is very much in line with what we're talking about today. Right. Setting out core values, making sure that the organization is aligned to those values in all ways and in general, just kind of taking care of the people across the Job.com ecosystem outside of work. I love living in Austin, Texas because I am an avid live music lover. Go to as many concerts as possible. I think we've been to 30 large format shows already this year. Seen some great music, gone to some great festivals. We've got Austin City Limits coming up here in a couple of weekends. So excited about that. So that's often where you'll find me when I'm not working, is enjoying some music. Also love the kind of outdoor lifestyle here in Austin. So enjoy hiking and taking the dogs and the kiddos around to enjoy this. The, the beautiful hills and things that we have in Austin. So that's a little bit about me.

I forgot. Margo. We were due to broadcast this a while ago but I was, I rescheduled because I messed up because I was going to a festival with my kids which we haven't talked about. It was awesome. Hey, I was broken afterwards as well with that sound. That's A sign of a good festival.

We get older, don't they?

Stop. That's not, that's not reveal our ages just yet. Margot. Let's pretend we're still well up for doing those festivals. Margo. Values is an interesting thing because every company, pretty much every company has them written somewhere, sometimes on the wall, at reception, on the homepage or whatever. And often people complain that they mean nothing in reality. Yeah. So they have a bit of a bad rep, certainly in the HR and people culture community. From your perspective though, what makes a good value and what do you mean by a good value?

Yeah. So if you'll indulge me for a moment, I think before we can talk about what makes a good value, we need to kind of understand the different types of values. Because it's relevant, right? And so I think there are really three main types of values. You've got your aspirational values, right. And that is kind of as aspirationals defined, you know, it's important, but maybe it doesn't exist as you want it to in your current organization so that then we would have an aspirational value. You've got permission to play values and those are the values that, you know, that's kind of your minimum expectation for your behavioral and social standards across the organization. And then you've got accidental. And those are the values that, you know, oftentimes I think we connect to most seamlessly because they just are part of the ether. Right. You didn't necessarily say it out loud, but it just is what shows up across your organization. So aspirational permission to play accidental. Right. So I think, you know, you, you really need to, to use that framework when thinking about your values. The what makes a good value is it's authentic. It is truly a part of the fabric of your organization. It's not just coming from the top down. Right. It's not just the leader, say, this is what we are, let's be this thing. It truly is part of the DNA of the organization. I think that oftentimes organizations will just throw words on a page that feel like the right thing to say but aren't necessarily authentic. And so being really authentic is mission critical. And making sure that everyone across the organization will resonates with those values is also critical.

So, so when you think about bodies, oftentimes they're very top down. So I know, you know, Reed Hastings wrote a book with Aaron Myers year or so ago where they redefined and updated the Netflix values and talked about, you know, how Netflix as a company use their Values. And I'll ignore the values for a second because each company has different values. But the more the principle of it was that they were very much designed by CEO and his suite of executives to try and drive their strategy. So they kind of had a very specific strategy and looked at the values that they believed would drive that strategy and they drove them top down through the organization. Is that the right way to do it? Is there, is it always a top down approach? Is there room for bottom up or is it a mix in your experience?

You know, my personal opinion is that the mix works best. Right. But depending on the, the kind of point at which an organization is, you know, if, if you've got founders for whom values are a core driver, core reason to their why, right. Then they don't have a bottom up approach. Right. You've got your founders that are kind of setting out your strategy and defining those values. And so if it is part of the organization's foundation, you know, that can work really well. But if you're say a midsize or a large organization and you haven't had values or you want to revisit your values. Absolutely. You want to engage the entire organization, all levels, all different pockets, all different, you know, if you have physical locations, all different physical locations. If you're, you know, international, all different locations, right. You want to make sure that it is truly representative of the tapestry that is your organization.

So, so, so you talked about the, you know, this different size of a company as well there. Right. So you know, as you say, some founders find a business and they have the values day one and they implement them. And you mentioned earlier in your categorization, there's accidental values. So values just develop over time without your knowledge. Are we planning of it? Is there a right time? If an organization hasn't defined the values from day one, is there a sweet spot kind of time size perhaps where you think that's about the right size to start defining it and spreading this across the company. And is there room for changing that over time as well?

I have a bias, right? My bias is do it as soon as you possibly can. Right. Because from my perspective, values should be a part of every single component of your organization. They should be a lens through which you make decisions. You should be hiring people based on their alignment to your values. And so the sooner the better. Right. I also think, you know, organizations and leadership shouldn't be afraid to pivot on the values. Right. We're in a world where lots of organizations are highly acquisitive at the moment, if you go through a series of acquisitions and the general makeup of your organization looks and feels different, that's a great time to reset and say, hey, does this still feel right? Is this in line with who we are, who we want to be, where we're going? You know, unlike a mission, right, which you want to kind of stay pretty steady on, Values can morph and flux just like an organization. They cannot.

So. So I was, I may have shared this story with you, but over the summer I was with the team in IKEA in, in Sweden, and we were basically, I had the pleasure of joining their team, their HR team on their kind of culture Values Building Week, which they do every year. And they go back to the town in Sweden that Ingvar, the founder of Ikea was born and where the first IKEA store opened. And he documented in a book, I think it's small book that he. I think it's called something like, you know, a guide to running a furniture store, something like that. And it basically he detailed exactly, you know, the principles by which he believed you needed to run a store, which essentially are the IKEA values. And the key of values. They've been changed once over the years. So they weren't formally documented as values for several years, although they were written in the book. They weren't called values, they weren't called out. But they invest an enormous amount of time in trying to, to teach the company and all the employees with experiences and they. An experiential way what the value was. So for example, they bring them all out to this small town in Sweden and they, they have to lift rocks, which is something that I Learned in Sweden 100 years ago or 200 years ago. A lot of that part, the land that called small land, there was rocks in the fields, everywhere, big boulders. And so the people of that area were very hardy because to. To farm, you had to literally find a way to move these massive rocks to clear the fields. And they became a very tough group of people. And there was a massive famine there a couple hundred years ago as well. And they went through a lot of hardship. And then there was inventions to improve that. So the whole point was that they had small land values, which was, you work as a community, you value the small things. You, you know, you work extremely hard. And so they bring people out there to, to lift rocks, to and to immerse themselves in the small land values and the culture and the place, so they understand how it works. That's a lot of effort to go to, to try and really infuse your values. I met the person who's responsible for values globally, and he's a team, and they research, research these things. They record videos, they, they put so much effort into it, and it struck me as, wow, that's, that's one way of doing it, but that's not the norm. Right. Folks have different ways of doing it. Some write them down, put them on a wall, move on. Like, when you think about successfully rolling out values, like say, let's say you just redefine them or you define them for the first time as an organization, to you, what are the kind of core ingredients of a successful rollout? Because I assume it's more than just print them and move on. What does it look like to you? Is it as extreme as maybe the IKEA example? Or is that aspirationally fantastic but unachievable for most? Or what do you think?

I love that example, and I hadn't heard that about ikea, so thank you for sharing. Obviously, that is the gold standard. If we could all kind of afford that in our budgets to give that kind of experiential connectivity to the values, that would be amazing. But I think there are absolutely things that all organizations can do without bringing the whole team to Sweden or wherever. And so I'll share some of the components that I think need to have for a successful values rollout. Number one is establishing a group of people who can be champions. So that's not just your leaders. Right. The assumption is that leadership obviously is going to be championing these values, but oftentimes our most influential people in an organization are not in leadership. Right. So you want to identify who those, those folks are across the organization, pull them into the loop a little bit early, get them excited, you know, let them preview, get their fingerprints on it.

Right.

Hopefully you've had some of their opinions before.

You're.

You're ready to start the rollout process, but have that group of champions embedded in the organization so that when you are rolling these out, you've got that kind of constant drum beat, not just from leadership, but from peer groups and across the organization to, to reinforce and to get excited about it. So that's a big one for me. I think another one is just really being prepared for the rollout process, being thoughtful about your communications plan. Right. I mean, this is internal marketing 101. Right. These are, these are part of the DNA of an organization. So you want to have as thoughtful a marketing plan as if you were rolling out a new product to your end user or your Consumer communication. Communication, Communication swag. Everybody loves it. Right. You know, a T shirt, a mouse pad, anything that can keep the values top of mind as you're just rolling them out. Another just kind of tip. When you, as leaders or the team who is responsible for rolling the values out is sick of talking about them, you've just started to scratch the surface. Right. You need to amplify times 10 to really kind of distribute the message and make sure that everyone is aware of and understands, you know, what the values are and then what they look like in practice. And so that's when you get into another recommendation I have, which is once you roll them out, that's just the start. Right. I think that workshops, roundtables, things like that work really well where you're sitting with a smaller group of people. Team, team conversations, I think is a great use case here where teams are talking about, okay, what do these look like day to day in our work? How are we going to pivot on our team norms or the way in which we engage with one another to make sure that we're demonstrating, we're making decisions through this, this set of values and practicing what they look like in practice. So that's really when you start to understand, okay, here's what the values are. They're on the wall. Great. What do they look like when I'm showing up every day and I'm doing my work? And so I think that's really important is once they're launched, that's just the very beginning. And the real work starts to embed those values into Lauren Pulley's day to day work. You know, how you're bringing people into the organization, how you're assessing performance and promoting people. They truly do have to become part and parcel of everything that's happening across the organization.

Well, talk to me further with those examples because I'd like to tease them out. You talk about infusing them in how you hire, how you manage performance, how you incentivize people. So, you know, let's go back to gold standards. What does great look like when it took, you know, what have you seen in your career where it's been done really well, whether in your organization or different organization around those areas, hiring, performance management, incentivization or whatever other categories that you want to bring up.

Yep. So. So I think it's all about being crystal clear about the, the set of values and what those behaviors look like. Right. Because once you've identified that, then you can easily. I'm using air quotes easily. Right. Nothing Nothing related to humans and behaviors and cultures necessarily easily done. But I think that if you say this value looks like this, here's how we demonstrate it and how we show up in our work, then as you're bringing people into the organization, it's a great filter. Right. And what I have seen success, while this sounds funny, is when people opt in out. Right. This isn't the right culture for me. This isn't the right opportunity. I celebrate that when I'm bringing people into an organization. Because ultimately that's what you want. Square P round pull never works. So when you have clearly articulated and defined what your values are, what they look like, how we demonstrate them, you can talk about that very transparently as you're, you're bringing people into your organization, you know, then it's, it's that constant drumbeat of whatever your performance review, you know, assessment process looks like they have to be core to that. Right. If you've got people leaders, then you want to, you know, make sure that you're evaluating them against the set of values, how they show up as leaders. Same for your individual contributors. So making sure that they're weaved into your, your performance process when, if you do a compensation merit review process needs to be a part of that. Right. It needs to show up in every stage of the kind of team member lifecycle to be truly successful and truly embedded.

So thank you for those examples of the good stuff. Right. Often though, we learn from when we do it wrong. I wonder if you would be open to sharing perhaps some of the less, less successful examples where you've learned from how not to do it or maybe it hasn't been, you know, your organization, but when you've seen it done wrong or you've tried something and heck, it just didn't work because of X, Y, Z, maybe do you any of those learnings to share with us maybe when it didn't go quite right and what you learned from that?

Yeah, you know, I think I've kind of alluded throughout the conversation, if you just have a meeting and you say these are our values, rah, rah rah, here's a coffee mug, go forth and do your job. Nothing is going to be successful. Right. And so I've certainly been part of launches of values earlier in my career where that's what we did. We were really thoughtful about putting them together. We, we had a big meeting. You know, that's pre Covid, so everyone's together. We have, you know, a rah rah around it. And then we go Away from the meeting and nothing else happens. We don't talk about it again. We don't, you know, have materials to support it. We're not doing any of the follow up and follow through activities. And so, you know, they just are that thing that are on the wall when you walk in the door. But people don't. If you asked anyone around the organization, they wouldn't know what they are. And so I think that's the biggest mistake is that, you know, people do tend to invest a lot of time and energy defining the values and then they drop the ball completely when it comes time to roll them out and embed them in the organization. Because that's the key. The rollout is just the beginning. You might think that the, that the, you know, thoughtful preparation and the analysis of, you know, your organization and strategic drivers is the work. That's not the work, that's the pre work. Right. The work is getting them embedded in your culture and embedded in how your people show up and how you're assessing talent and promotion and things like that.

I guess what I'm hearing is once you're trying, you kind of can't go wrong because it's constantly reinforcing them. Some efforts will be better than others. What is the continual process of trying, of trying to create engagement, awareness, communication around your values to infuse it in different parts of your business? Some will be more successful than the others. But the big lesson is just not trying anything or not being conscious of that effort is where you'll fall down. Otherwise, just try everything because any effort is going to hopefully make you more successful because it's just getting it back on the agenda, reminding people that it's really important to the business. That'd be fair to say.

Absolutely. You know, we're busy and we are easily distracted as humans. Right. We've got phones dinging and this thing happening and lots going on at work and lots going on at home. And so repetition truly is the key to learning. I say that a lot. And you don't have to have grand demonstrations every day. It's the little things that really move the needle. Right. So, you know, consider creating a slide that, that you utilize in all of your presentations. If you're an organization that typically does presentations with slide decks, that should be how you open every meeting, right. Not just internally, but bring your external stakeholders in as well. Make sure that, that your external stakeholders understand and appreciate your values because that should also impact how you show up and work with them. So again, it's, it's it's little things that can move the needle, but it is about consistency. And again, that kind of constant drumbeat so that every day, every person across your organization is interacting with and touching the values, experiencing them and demonstrating them.

We launch into this topic without establishing the why, Marco. So in your experience, you know, why do this? Like, what are the outcomes for an organization of strong values that are well embedded, well understood? Why do organizations put effort into this? What's the ROI in your experience?

That's a wonderful question, Johnny. I think we're all looking for purpose in our work. Whatever that purpose might be, whatever is important to each individual. We're all motivated by different things, but ultimately, you know, understanding what's important to an organization helps us as humans connect to the other people that we're working with, the work that we're doing, right? It, it helps to provide that purpose. And so I think that's, that's a, a really critical why, from my perspective, right. It is, it is so important to distinguish, distinguish one organization from another these days. There's a lot of, lot of potential places that people can spend their time and energy. And so if we invest heavily in creating values and, you know, tying our culture to those values, people know what they're getting and they can, you know, really feel that in their work. And I personally believe that that helps make that purpose come to life.

I love that. It reminds me, several years ago, a friend of mine had joined Tesla as the VP of TA for International, and he was based in Amsterdam and he'd been working for big tech companies and everyone wanted to work for Tesla at the time. And so they're getting a lot of job applications from Google and Facebook and LinkedIn and these folks, and they, they would join Tesla and they'd rock in to the office after they're signed their contract. And the first thing is like, where's the canteen, where's the coffee? Where's the. Everything is like, we've got one espresso machine like, like the one that takes one cup at a time. That's it. No T shirts, no swag, no free meals, no nothing. And the folks they were hiring from these tech companies were like, well, that doesn't make sense. And what they, the head of TA, begun to realize was that folks assumed they had the same values of these other organizations. But the mission in Tesla was to say that was, was, was part of, I guess, Musk's bigger mission of say, you know, this idea that we have to save the planet or get off the planet because the Planet's dying. And with that mission, the values were focused on speed, save money, work hard. This mission is bigger than everybody. You will not see your family. You will work crazy hours. We're not spending money on coffee and swag and teachers to make you happy because we've got to save up, save this planet. And they had such high churn until they really started communicating those values to folks up front to say this is these are our values. Like we're serious and they're not for everybody. Heck, they wouldn't be for me. I wouldn't work in that kind of an organization. But they were okay with, with, with saying that because it filtered out the folks who they wouldn't be successful. To your point, you have to kind of have a uniqueness, but it needs to be then maybe it's tied to that mission or vision to say there's a reason for this. And I guess if you're just the same as everybody else, right. You're just not unique. Why, why work for you? Because there's a certain bunch of people for whom that mission and those values are so important that they will want to work for that company above everybody else. Like Tesla will be the number one employer because of those values rather than it being a negative, I guess.

Yes, exactly. Right. Like the better we can communicate who we are as an organization, the better we're going to be able to bring the right people into the business to support our mission and our vision and to propel the organization forward. You know, again, square peg, round hole. It's never a good thing. It's never a successful long term relationship. And ultimately, I think that's what businesses want to build are good communities of employees who are passionate about their work, passionate about belonging to the organization and doing great things together.

So, Margo, we've reached that point of the show where we have to run you through whatever quiz the social talent team has cooked up for us this week. So I have no idea what we're going to do next, but are you ready?

I love a good quiz. Let's do it.

Why? Let's do this. So this week we've got a special quiz in store aligned with our theme. So we're going to work together to name three fictional companies from TV or film based on their company values as generated by AI So we got to match the values to the fictional company that's come from a TV show or movie based on what? AI which is very aligned to your organization's mission within the values, which is very aligned to our conversation Today. So I love that. That alignment of those two today. Marco. So I know how this is going to work, and I believe I've got to contribute as well. So let's go. Let's bring up our first. Our first quiz question. So we have three different values here. The first is having a customer centric approach. The second is diversity and inclusion. And the third is paper sustainability. So what company from TV or film has the value of paper sustainability? Margot, I want to ask you this. I have a feeling, you know this. The feeling you have a bit. You're a big fan, which is one of the most popular TV shows on the planet, but can't go with the show. You've got it. Then try and nail the name of the company. Because I'm stuck on the name of the company.

So I think we're talking about the office here. And so that would be Dunder Miffler, Mifflin, Dunder something or other paper company. Yes.

Dunder Mifflin Inc. Well done from the office. You nailed it. I love it. Okay. Well done. That's brilliant. Brilliant. Love this quiz. Right? I love this. Right? I got to. I got to try one on, right? I'm going to try one on. What's next? Friendship and compassion. Environmental responsibility. Laughter is powerful. Oh, I am stuck. Margo, I got to ask for some help here. I got to phone a friend. What do you think?

I mean, I. I'm thinking of a lot of TV shows. Do we have a hint if this is a TV or movie?

Laughter is a Parks and Rec. Movies. No, not TV show. I mean guided. Think of a movie. Laughter is powerful. Friendship and compassion. Environmental responsibility. Laughter is very important for a company. A company. Is it a. Gosh, I need more think. I need more hints. Right. For our team, we're going to use no hint. Okay. Laughter. Power. Laughter and power. Is it a movie?

Is it a kids movie?

Is it a kids movie? What do we think? Is it a kids movie?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, I have. I have a guess. Go Monsters, Inc. Oh, I love that. Yes, I love that.

Laughter is power for Monster, Inc. Two for two. Margaret, you are on fire. Okay, I think we got more. One more company. Let's go. So our third and final one, Margo. Secrecy and surprise. Adventure and exploration. And the one we're asking you to focus on is whimsy and imagination. So it's either a TV or a movie. What do you think?

Oh, it does sound very like almost hocus pocusy, perhaps.

And the produ. Our producer is saying it is a movie.

Is there?

So was there a movie? Was there? There's no company in Hocus Pocus that I can remember. No. Are we on the right track? Producers, tell me we're on the right track. Give us a. Give us a hint. Hocus Pocus kind of kids movie, kind of like that. That it's, you know, witches and those sorts of characters. So we got to focus on imagination. I'm being told imagination, not witches. Don't you go. No, go, go, go, go, go. He's trying to talk. I'm trying to think.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. That might be.

That's not a bad one. Yeah. That's imagination. Nope.

No.

Nope, nope. I'm wondering, is. Is it the company in Elf Publishing Company. I wonder. Nope. Nope. Okay, we need another hint. Another hint from our producers.

Another hint.

Please. Give us a good hint here. What do we think it is? Whimsy and imagination. Candy. Candy. Oh, come on. Candy. Candy's done for me. Whoa.

Ooh.

Begins with W. I suspect the company begins with W. No.

Yes. You. You do it. You're. It's your turn to go on. Nani.

Is it Wonka. Wonka Bars. Wonka Chop. Wonka Industries. Yes. Brilliant. That was.

How could we forget?

I know. Witches in Paloomas. We weren't. We weren't there, were we? We weren't there. That was fantastic, Margot. You know, you beat me. You beat the socks off. You got the last ones as well. You are just on fire. We have nailed the culture of those three fictional companies down to a T, I think. Of course we did. We've been talking about culture for the last 30 minutes. Of course we did. Margo, thank you so much for joining us today. If any of our listeners want to reach out to you to get you, get your views on culture or anything else, where can they find you? Where's your social presence? What's the best way to reach out to you?

Yeah, LinkedIn is a great spot to find me. I check my messages there regularly, and I'd love to engage in conversation with anyone around this topic. It's a real passion for me.

And if you can see that on our show, notes are live. Margo, that's a U, X and Gilman with two Ls. If you want to check Margot out from job.com. margot, it's been such a pleasure for effort to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me on such an important topic and I hope you're going to come back soon and do another quiz with me because that was a bit of fun.

It was fun. Thank you so much for having me, and have a great one.

And thank you for listening, listener. Real pleasure to have you. We'll be back in two weeks with our next show. Until then, be sure to work smart, Sam.