Core Values and Strategic Alignment

Core Values are at the heart of your business, get them right and they drive all the decisions and behaviours for your team, they become the rules of your ‘cult’ure.

Discovery

biz-ability can facilitate the discovery of your core values.  If you’ve been in business for a couple of years or more, they already exist, perhaps not in everyone and every day but they are there.  Rather than defining a series of ‘nice to have’ aspirational values, our team will help you dig deep to find the true essence of your culture and capture this in impactful phrases.  It is much easier to build a culture based on a foundation than to try building it from a wish list.

Three rules to test if you have the right core values:

1. They should describe your personality – just by reading the phrases or words without any long descriptions or back up documents.  When read by a stranger they should get a sense of the company.  We help you discover the right phrases.
2. You must be willing to fire someone for violating them – perhaps not the first time, but they go to the route of your belief system.  They are not just guiding principles or something to post on the reception wall; they are what you stand for.  Break them and you just don’t ‘fit’ in the company.  People normally hire for skills and fire for values.  Getting them right helps you ensure everyone lives by them.
3. The company must be prepared to spend or lose money to protect the values.  We can’t have a single deal or piece of business that contradicts the values.  The leadership must live them in everything they do.  If you need to invest to keep in line with what you are expecting others to deliver them you must be prepared to do this.

Launch

Once you are comfortable you have the right values, we can help launch them into the business.   This can be done in a variety of ways from a whole team meeting of any size to a series of events throughout your organization.  The launch includes working with internal communications teams to make sure messaging is consistent, stories can be gathered and the values not just remembered but really understood.

Living the Values

We provide the ongoing support and guidance on how your values should be integrated into job descriptions and contracts, performance management, rewards and recognition, promotions and day to day decision making.

Get the values right and you get the organization culture right.

Strategy Workshops

This requires the involvement of the senior management team in an intense but rewarding two day strategy workshop. The workshop objective is focused and straight forward: to complete a one page strategic plan for the business which addresses the Four Strategic Decisions

• People
• Strategy
• Execution
• Cash

This facilitated and highly productive workshop will provide the following elements on a one page strategic plan

Strategy Reviews

Keeping the executive team engaged, aligned and committed is an essential part of the rhythm required to keep strategy alive and delivering. Therefore many biz-ability clients engage us to keep them on track through quarterly or half yearly strategy review workshops. These can be one or half-day sessions, depending on the complications of the business.

Facilitation & Coaching

Sometimes a lighter touch may be appropriate to address specific issues. We provide facilitation for senior executive retreats which address, for example:

• People - Getting the leaders of the business to consider how they might operate more effectively as a team; or how they might manage the impact of change on the business
• Strategy - Defining priorities; getting buy-in for a new initiative; or getting alignment on a goal that has already been agreed
• Execution - Getting a project back on track; breaking down silo mentality; agreeing to key measures and holding each other accountable