Our Core Values: People First
This post is a message that I wrote for our team to provide additional clarity and meaning into our core values and is a part of a series that was started with our article Establishing Core Values that Actually Impact Your Business.
I have said it before and I will say it again… We are not a product company. We are a people company.
A company started by people. To work alongside people. So that people can accomplish great things. We build products, provide services, and create resources. But those things are how we, as people, serve other people. The how may change, but this is what will always remain true.
But what does People First mean anyway? That’s a great question and I’m glad I asked it. Let me throw some examples out at you.
- People over Profits
- People over Processes
- People over Products
- People over Preferences
- People over Platitudes
Okay, I ran out of P words, but replace them with any other word you want. All those others words, sans platitudes, are great things. The word “over” here means when face with these two important things, one takes precedence. We have preferences. Building and selling products is a part of our core competency. Processes are extremely helpful in making an organization operate smoothly. A company can’t really survive without profits. BUT, when we make decisions, people trump them all. We have all dealt with companies who have the items in that list reversed. And I’m pretty sure we would all agree that those experiences were terrible.
Here are some questions to keep ourselves in check.
- Am I mad at someone else and I have not even questioned my own assumptions or motives?
- Am I assuming user error, but haven’t yet vetted the product or documentation to make sure they are functional and clear?
- Am I holding to a process without considering its impact or the details of the situation?
- Am I insisting on an outcome because it’s what’s best for the team, customer, or organization? Or is it just because it’s the way I prefer things to be done?
- Am I making this decision because it’s good for the team, the customer, or the bottom line?
In all of the above possible situations, Am I engaging in conversation from a place of curiosity and not certainty so that I may better understand and adapt?
Like almost everything in life, these aren’t always black & white issues. The bottom line is important. Is it the most important? No. Is it a gauge that sometimes needs to be considered when making decisions that could hurt people? Yes. Business is hard. Relationships are hard. Life… is hard.
Is People First too Ambiguous?
What do we do when there are multiple people impacted by a decision? How do we decide how to navigate the competing interests of different people?
When we first introduced the four core values to everyone we described People First with this short statement.
“Team, Customers, Stakeholders, in that order.”
That statement is a not-so-subtle nod to how we, as leaders, think about decisions. It’s how we hope each team member will also think about their responsibilities. We first take care of each other so that we can better serve our customers and ultimately build a thriving profitable business. Let’s unpack each of these.
Team Members
This refers to all of us at Saturday Drive. From the most recent hire all the way up to the owners. We are all working together to reach any number of outcomes. We all have different experiences, challenges, and responsibilities, but we are a team and we need to have each other’s back.
I have always looked at this company like my family. I didn’t always have the best relationship with my older brother. We were 5 years apart. He was a bit of a troublemaker and I was his bratty younger brother who was mostly a nuisance to him. We had nothing in common.
I was also bullied a lot in the 4th grade by an older kid whose whole family had a reputation of being bullies. As much as my brother and I fought and got on each other’s last nerve, when he found out about the bully, he took on that whole family to make sure the bullying stopped and I felt safe.
That’s what it means to be a team member at Saturday Drive. We don’t have to agree with everything politically or ideologically. We may fight about any number of things, but at the end of the day, we are still a team. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.
Customers
Customers are the reason we all get paid. If it wasn’t for customers, we couldn’t be a team. The reason we put team first is because if we don’t take care of each other we won’t have the resources to take care of our customers.
I want you to think about something as it pertains to customers. They purchase a product from one of our brands, but underneath that brand, they are really putting trust in each and every one of us. They didn’t just purchase a product. They purchased the care each of us puts into the product, services, communication, and even administration of our company. They bought into our culture, our ability to solve problems, and our ability to make wise decisions.
Stakeholders
While technically these are the owners, I would like to better define stakeholders. This represents the owners’ interests in organizational growth. The point we want to establish is that while this is important and should always be considered, it is not the most important thing and it never has been.
Let me be clear, businesses and by association, stakeholders, exist to make money. No one goes into business to lose money. It’s just that it is not the driving force of why we are doing this. I also strongly believe that if you take care of the team and customers, the business will do just fine.
There is probably plenty more to be said about this very important value, but I will save that for another time. See you next week.