Turning Values Into Action  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: Turning Values Into Action - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/39e40aa8-711d-4b37-a690-917dd744b688 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Make Values Actionable** - Values must be defined so they guide real decisions rather than being vague platitudes. - Robert Glazer presents a decade-tested framework to convert values into actionable core principles. Transcript: Robert Glazer Yeah, I think there's two things. It's really clarifying personal values from company values and what those are. And this was the problem I was in. First of all, there's a lot of talk about values, but I don't think we've defined them. I don't think we've really known, shown people how to sort of solve it for themselves. It's kind of like Simon Sinek did. Like, yeah, start with why. And then go find your why. Like, not that easy. But like, solve it definitively and in a way that makes them actionable. You know, so I can go out in the world and make better decisions than otherwise. And I have been working on this framework that sits behind the book for almost a decade now. It sort of was the solution for me. I started leadership training. I brought it to a course to 2,000 people. I was like, I want to get this to more people. And so the story, the book's a parable, but the story sits on top of this framework and then it tells you what the framework is. ([Time 0:02:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ff386449-1483-45d7-baea-e3fdcd6a5938)) - **Define Values As Behaviors** - Don’t list one-word ideals like 'family' or 'integrity' without defining behaviors that prove them. - Define specific, measurable behaviors so you can objectively rate yourself on each value. Transcript: Robert Glazer Yeah. You know, I think I said it in the book, I think, or I think Jack says it in one of his lessons with Jamie. I don't think family is a core value. And I think a lot of people say, oh, family is a core value. So for me, again, if it's a core value, it shows up in your family, in your leadership, in your work, and in your friendships and all that stuff. So I think family can be your top priority. But when I really push people on this, I'm trying to figure out how do you show up for family? Like what is it? Because how you show up for family is probably how you show up for employees or friends, or you don't, frankly, right? If one of your values is a little more like skip the emotion, right? That's probably how you show up for your family. So when you get people to realize that, that maybe the value is something like always be there or be the first one there or something like that, then they're like, oh, like, that's really Cool. Now, actually see that in multiple areas of my life. But a lot of the things I think the number, if you ask most people, like my values are family and integrity. And those both fail like the tests that are in my book. I have at least six definitions of integrity that I've heard. And again, this was one where there is a discussion in the book. What is the behind that integrity? What is it like? Your word is your bond? Is it, you know, there's something deeper that sort of drives your behavior and that's more helpful to understand that. ([Time 0:05:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/77a884c1-93b4-4566-aade-845ef87c730c)) - **Use Values In Reviews** - Test values by asking if you can objectively rate someone on them during performance reviews. - Replace vague language with concrete behaviors like 'includes all perspectives' or 'makes people feel welcome.' Transcript: Robert Glazer Discipline, that's different a little bit than always maintain discipline. I can say, oh, in the same way with company values, I say you should be able to sit down with John and do his performance review and review the values. Same thing personally. I remember arguing with a company in the nonprofit space. They were like, our values celebrate diversity. And I was like, I don't like that value. Why? I'm like, I get what you're doing. Because I'm not going to sit down and be like, John, you did a really bad job yesterday at celebrating diversity. It's just not a natural conversation. Or in hiring, what you might have said is, hey, you didn't include all perspectives. Or didn't really listen and make people feel welcome, right? Like that's a, that is a much more, both companies and individuals failed as the test, like one of the tests of the value is, can I objectively rate myself on it? Because that's how you know if you're doing it or not. ([Time 0:07:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ee9a6898-9f56-446e-969b-b9875e90aeef)) - **Values Are Mostly Preformed** - Core values are usually formed during transformational, formative life periods. - You can discover them by tracking when you're in flow, what frustrates you, and who you consistently clash with. Transcript: Robert Glazer So yeah, I don't know if it's no, yes, no, yes, but I'll go through it. So I think your values are actually mostly baked at transformational periods of life. And for most of us, those are our young teenage childhood kind of formative years. And actually, when you really double click into it, most people are going for or against as a value, right? They are trying to double down on something that was important or there was something they hated, like they had a parent that ran away or whatever, and they are going to be always there At what I said before. So I actually think when you figure them out, you go back and you're like, oh, all this stuff makes sense. Now, they can change. Priority can change. Like some things happen. But it has to be something pretty significant that happens, like maybe a health scare or something that changed or reprioritized one of your values. And I think that so that's kind of that context. And the process I build is to design like behavioral-based questions to look across these life experiences, look at all the things that are consistent when you're happy, when you're In flow, when things are going well, what is frustrating, what is always hard, who are the people you fight with, and start to pull those DNA things out. ([Time 0:10:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/10078ca2-9a92-4c52-8d21-a03dc20ac6e6)) - **Announce Your Leadership Values** - Tell your team what your values mean and the behaviors that signal breaches. - Use transparent examples so people know how trust is earned and restored in your team. Transcript: Robert Glazer They have a core value or why of relationships based on trust. And if you dig into that, most commonly, there's been a huge violation of trust in their life. So this person's orienting factor is to figure out whether people can be trusted or not. This is true in work and leadership and friendships. And if they don't know that, what happens is a mess that you see of like with HR, where they're constantly like putting people in the penalty box and not telling them you're a few minutes Late for something, you missed a presentation, suddenly you're not being talked to, you're not getting any assignments. This is someone who it's driving their behavior and it's not doing it in a good way. Right. Now, the same person who understood that and it hadn't been like, oh, geez, like trust is really important to me. We'd go back to their team or people and they said, look, John, welcome to my team. I'm Bob. Just so you know, trust is really important to me. And when it's lost, it's really hard to get back. And here are the types of things that actually showing up to meetings, not being able to find you, missing deadlines. They sort of trust. If at any time you're feeling me being sort of aloof or distant, there probably has been a breakdown of trust and like you should come talk. ([Time 0:12:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d5517271-24e8-4679-8a7a-03097f8770b9)) - **Values Aligned Growth At His Firm** - Clarifying company values helped Acceleration Partners move from feeling rudderless to focused growth. - Robert discovered his bio accomplishments followed the moment he aligned company policies to clarified values. Transcript: Robert Glazer Fast, but it felt rudderless and all over the place. And actually clarifying my core values and then coming back and narrowing the company core values and aligning our policies around that was really like the gasoline on the fire. In fact, my pretty unique core value of respectful authenticity is a direct line. I think the last time I was on talking about our whole initiative to eliminate two weeks notice and change that process. I think you should tell people the truth. I think you should be direct. But I also think you should support people. So that was the connecting factor. The big moment for me, actually, the epiphany was three years ago, someone was reading my bio for speaking. And I realized that every single thing they said in my bio came after I had figured out my core values and made all of those changes. So it really pulled all the pieces together. ([Time 0:17:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5401eac7-48a7-4f74-a393-942e8469a678)) - **Basecamp's Costly Values Decision** - Basecamp removed politics from the workplace and lost staff but gained applicants aligned with their values. - The company ultimately achieved higher engagement and stable revenue after the decision. Transcript: Robert Glazer They have not raised VC money. They have stayed in a small segment. They worked remotely. And they've called SaaS stuff stupid when it needed to be called stupid. They have $100 million, probably make $10 million a year. They call the hustle culture dumb. But in 2002, in the peak of, we'll just say, kind of woke and corporate activism, they decided no more politics at their company. They personally felt they don't like things that are divisive and arguing. They just were like, we don't even want to work here. This is not what we want. And this was a very personal decision that aligned to their personal values where they said, this is not what we want. And so they made this decision. They told people that they could leave and a values decisions usually cost you something. I think this is the piece that we leave out. Right. And they, so they lost 20 to 30% of the company. This is before Elon Musk bought Twitter. Everyone was using Twitter, try to cancel them, put them out of business. Funny thing happened though, their business kind of stable. The 30% of the people took the buyout and left who wanted corporate activism at work and they're like, we just want to be a software company and build good software. Applications went really crazy from people who didn't want politics at work and didn't want to be forced into positions. ([Time 0:20:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4c266e52-206f-4700-bc44-28e2309ee277)) - **Try The Six-Question Drill** - Use Robert Glazer's six diagnostic questions to surface your core values quickly. - Visit robertglazer.com/six, answer them for thirty minutes, and inspect patterns you didn't expect. Transcript: Robert Glazer Can do all of that at robertglazer.com or compass-within I know some people like doing this work is, you know, there's a course that seems like a lot. What I said is I've taken the six questions from the book. So at robertglazer.com/six, there's six questions like just go there. You can get it for free. Answer them. Look at those answers for half an hour and see if like, huh, there's some stuff I didn't expect to see here. ([Time 0:22:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1decd2e5-133b-4368-b5e5-25985b75370a))