Uncovering Our Why – Our Agency’s Core Values and How They Unite Our Team

As an agency, we have the opportunity to help brands share their stories with the world. As our agency has grown and matured, we’ve been doubling down our efforts to uncover and communicate our own “why”. 

It’s important because core values are the glue that hold any organization together. If you’re not clear on your values, how do you know which way you’re going? 

Recently, our team sat down to review our core values. The good news is that our values still resonated with our team, and discussing each of our core values in detail helped us reinforce why we love what we do. We also developed two new values, which we felt really articulated the strides we’ve made over the past year. 

Our core values include:

Serving as Trusted Advisors to our clients

Having an Approachable Attitude

Being Creative Problem-Solvers

Being Tuned In and caring deeply

Inspiring Work

Collaborative Culture

These values are a non-negotiable for us – they’re what we hold close as we approach our work, how we interact with each other, our partners and our clients, and they also help us to attract clients who believe the same things we do. 

Developing values for your own business can feel like a daunting task – how do you clearly articulate what you believe? What if everyone doesn’t agree? When I was initially pondering our core values, I thought back to a trusted guide I once had on a wilderness safari trip in Africa. On that trip, to some extent, I had to trust the guide with my life. I thought about all of the attributes that the guide embodied to help me feel confident, safe and have fun. He was a trusted advisor, was approachable, solved problems in a creative way, and was completely tuned in to the group, the wildlife and the environment around us. When he gave a recommendation, we followed it. When we entered a space where predatory animals were around, we followed his cues and felt perfectly at ease.

Reflecting on my memories of that guide served as a valuable guidepost toward the values I wanted to embody for our clients. While we may not be dodging lions and hyenas in a corporate environment, building trust and knowing how to seamlessly navigate unknown circumstances is always essential. 

This year, we also launched guiding principles to help our team understand how we can take good care of ourselves and each other. These principles have become part of our corporate culture and have enhanced everyone’s sense of balance. 

Time & Space: Ensuring our team members have a strong sense of balance, between working hard and rest. 

Burning Bright: Caring deeply for our work takes energy. We encourage each other to burn bright, not burn out.

Shining Together: We celebrate each other’s wins, personally and professionally. We are all stronger when we are stronger together. 

Learn & Grow: The landscape is always changing – how do we stay at the top of our game as Trusted Advisors? We invest in opportunities to learn new skills to be the best at what we do.

Fill the Tank: Once in a while, we surprise the team with an outing or a half day off to “fill the tank”, which helps us continue to be our best for our clients and each other. 

 

Understanding and communicating your purpose and values can help you and your team move mountains together. What guides you?