{"id":344,"date":"2017-02-01T00:04:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T00:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stepstonetexas.com\/?p=344"},"modified":"2020-10-01T18:15:11","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T18:15:11","slug":"tough-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/?p=344","title":{"rendered":"Tough Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Sometimes, we don’t always get it right. \u00a0But you will easily correct mistakes with one simple rule. \u00a0Stay true to your core values!<\/p>\n

Last month, Angie wrote a blog about our our core values.<\/a>\u00a0 Angie, Cameron and I spent over a month debating, changing, refining and making sure that they were the core values that really epitomized what StepStone was all about — not just to the staff, but to our agents and our clients as well.<\/p>\n

Every business needs to spend time developing and sharing their core values. \u00a0Some recommended reading on the subject are Good To Great by Jim Collins and Traction by Gino Wickman. \u00a0Put these on your MUST READ list!<\/p>\n

Companies that are able to grow and sustain growth revolve around good people. \u00a0But what defines someone as a good person to be on your team isn’t always the numbers or results.<\/p>\n

Jim Collins equates this to the people you work with (or in your company) are people on a bus. \u00a0Good companies know where they are going and try to fit people who help it get there onto the bus. \u00a0But Great companies fill a bus with like-minded people and then let the people decide where the bus goes.<\/p>\n

Well, we put the wrong person on our bus. \u00a0And that led to a tough decision, but one that was clear. \u00a0We hired someone who didn’t meet our core values. \u00a0While the numbers looked good, we made the decision to let him go because we are not trying to be a good company, but a great one.<\/p>\n

When someone is not meeting your core values, it brings the mood, direction and overall productivity of your company down, even if that person is performing at a high level.<\/p>\n

Before reading Good to Great or Traction, I believe we would have held onto our sales person and allowed him to bring overall productivity down because we would have believed in the numbers. \u00a0But by having our core values well-defined, thought-out and debated before the hiring process even began, the tough decision became easy.<\/p>\n

Whenever someone on your team doesn’t meet your core values, you must\u00a0let them go. \u00a0It’s not even really a choice. \u00a0And since we did, the mood and productivity of our office is again accelerating. \u00a0We will hire a new salesperson, then more staff, then more salespeople and even more staff as we continue to grow and grow. \u00a0But those that stay with us will always meet our core values.<\/p>\n

We will not sacrifice our values for numbers. \u00a0But will load up the bus with great like-minded people and enjoy the ride! \u00a0Because that is how companies become great!<\/p>\n

I encourage each and every one of you to not only real Good to Great and Traction, (and other books I could recommend), but spend some time defining what your core values are and how you want to grow a company around them. \u00a0You’ll be glad you spent so much time on it. \u00a0It will be the basis of future decisions and will allow you to ride the bus to success!<\/p>\n

Photo credit: abraham.williams<\/a> via Foter.com<\/a> \/ CC BY-SA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, we don’t always get it right. \u00a0But you will easily correct mistakes with one simple rule. \u00a0Stay true to your core values! Last month, Angie wrote a blog about our our core values.\u00a0 Angie, Cameron and I spent over a month debating, changing, refining and making sure that they were the core values that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stepstonetexas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}