Core Values & Beliefs

Core Values are what underpin both your personal and corporate identity.  Without core values, people and companies will drift through trends and fads without having a strong enough base to mold the chaos around them. While Mission Statements and BHAGs can change when the world changes, Core Values should be the strong foundation that persist no matter what.

Ship, Shipmate, Self

In the Navy we say “Ship, Shipmate, Self” as a basic concept of how to prioritize in cases of emergency, but it represents a general ethos that I believe creates the right attitude for a company to have.  While there is a natural inclination toward self-interest, a tight collective, like a ship, can improve each individual’s outcomes if everyone first prioritizes according to Ship, Shipmate, Self.  The ship/company is what sustains the group, and must be protected to enable individual success, and with each member of a crew focusing on sustaining their shipmates, they are in turn protected and enabled.

Authority and Responsibility Must Be Interlocked

A lot of dissatisfaction comes from people feeling responsibility without having the appropriate authority to meet that responsibility.  Giving a team member metrics to meet without giving them the tools to meet the metrics is dooming them to both failing and suffering.  On the flipside, giving a team member authority without responsibility sets the organization up for misalignment of priorities.  The two must always be locked together.

Put a Number on It

Goals should have numbers, and numbers should be tracked.  The inclination to leave things vague tends to conceal a fear of commitment to an outcome.  Pick the outcome you want to achieve, put a number to it, and start making progress.

Goals should be a little bit scary.  If they’re not scary, they’re just a to-do.

"Can't" is a Prioritization Issue

Within the laws of physics, there isn’t much that “can’t” be done. There are many goals for which the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, but if the juice is valuable enough, the squeeze CAN be built, ordered, lobbied for, traded for, or otherwise brought into existence.  Sometimes wheels need to be reinvented, things that aren’t broken need to be fixed, sacred cows need to make sacred leather, and Goonies need to say “die”, but if there’s a will, there is absolutely a way.