Making Your Values Sticky

When my father owned Footers Catering, he didn’t have a mission statement, a formal vision, or defined values. He loved catering and simply wanted to provide great food and service to his clients and make a living that supported our family. While he had success, it was usually reliant on him being at the events because he struggled to translate his passion to his employees.

They lacked an understanding of why the company existed, where my dad wanted it to go, and what the company stood for. Sure, he had a handful of committed people, but overall, there was a lack of teamwork, minimal engagement, and additionally, employees also worked on or pushed their own agendas that weren’t always in line with the company’s best interests.

Fast forward to 2010 when my wife, April, and I purchased the business from my dad. Our number one priority was to transform Footers Catering into a great place to work and the first step we took on that path was to formalize the foundation for how we would do business moving forward. We asked the current team why they worked at Footers, what was important to them, and what made us unique. Their answers, combined with our vision for the company, led us to the formation of our mission, a compelling vision statement, and eight core values. We quickly realized that our work was far from done. This was just the start of our journey to having those values mean something and have significance in our organization.

Companies often have core values, but many of their employees don’t even know what those values are. If leaders want their team members to live by those values, they not only have to communicate them, but they also must provide ways for their team to remember them. Like mud on a shoe, the sugary residue of cotton candy on a child’s fingers, or a fly to one of those adhesive fly traps, if companies want to find ways to make their values stick in the minds of their team members, they should get creative.

Acronyms 

Acronyms are a great way to shorten a string of words or help people remember a list. Our original acronym for our core values was: “C BIG TREE.” We had a fake tree that lived in our office with all eight values taped to the plastic leaves.  After a year or so, we realized we needed to make a few changes to our values. “Customer Service” became “Service;” we added “Fun,” and changed “Excellence” to “Awesomeness.” We wanted a word that went beyond just doing a great job, something unique that embodied the moment people stop, take note, and say “Wow, that’s cool.” This sparked the need for a new acronym and after having way too much fun rearranging the letters to find what words they could create, THE C-SUITE by Anthony Lambatos Anthony Lambatos grew up in the catering business working for his father and founder of Footers Catering in Denver, Colorado. Anthony and his wife, April, purchased the business in 2010 and have successfully made the transition to a second-generation family business. They recently moved Footers Catering into a new facility that will also house their newest venture—an event center called Social Capitol. Anthony is passionate about helping other companies create great places to work and inspiring people with heart leadership and does that through his sister company MIBE (acronym for make it better everyday). We landed on “FAB TIGERS.” When the acronym creates a new word or phrase it can take on a life of its own. At Footers, we have our FAB TIGERS den in our lunchroom which is a comfortable tiered seating area with a jungle motif and tigers covering the wall. Nine teal tigers are mixed in, each with one of our values below their fierce face. Tiger trophies are given at our annual core value awards to the team members who embody each of our nine core values. There is also a “FAB TIGERS” channel on our Microsoft Teams page that is for all company updates; and it’s not uncommon to see people wearing tiger apparel (sometimes matching) at company events.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound at the start of a series of words that can give a lyrical or emotive effect. The playful and musical rhythmic effect helps the content to be more memorable. Companies have used this for years to help their organizations be more recognizable. Think about Dunkin Donuts®, PayPal™, and TED Talks. The team at Butler’s Pantry in St. Louis, MO put this into action when they created the “Four Peas” to help their team remember their four core values: Positive, Passionate, Poised, and Putting People First. They reinforced this with “Pea Pod” lapel pins containing four “peas” that their team can wear to events. When guests ask about the pins, they proudly share that they represent the values of the company and explain what they are.

Three things

“The Rule of Three” alludes to the idea that information presented in threes is more memorable, satisfying, and effective to an audience; our brains have evolved to recognize patterns to find shortcuts to process logic and remember facts. Additionally, “three” happens to be the smallest number of elements required to create a pattern. These examples are easy to find. In storytelling, there are Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and The Three Bears. Most of us remember “Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness” when asked about the Declaration of Independence. It’s not a coincidence that the slogan for Rice Krispies® was “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” and Nike® uses “Just Do It.” The Rule of Three inspired our “three bullet mission statement” at Footers and it can be applied to core values as well. Maybe you choose three core values or six values that are lumped into two groups of three. You could come up with three phrases or tenets that your company lives by. Or get creative and find a way to incorporate three characters, three stories, or three items to help make your values stick. 

Values in an organization should constantly be reinforced, but before they can be reinforced, the team needs to know what those values are. When we find ways to help our team members remember our core values, we raise awareness of those core values; it increases the frequency in which they are mentioned, highlights how important they are, and provides talking points for them to be discussed on a more regular basis. When we make our values sticky, they stay top of mind long after review in an initial orientation and are more likely to be lived by the team every day.