Our 10 Core Values
1. Serve Everyone, Always
Work is most meaningful when we create value that serves others—we exist as a company to serve our customers. Without customers to serve we will cease to exist. Internally, as a team, we must serve one another so we can to create great products, services and experiences for our customers. We can’t allow internal difficulty to get in our way, so we overcome challenges together. We don’t just seek our own good, rather actively seek the good of others.
2. Look Beyond the Money
It’s been said that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. We reject the teaching that the purpose of business is to maximize value for just shareholders. Instead, we hold to this view – the chief end of business is to maximize returns for all stakeholders. We believe this approach is the solid foundation for sustainable financial returns and impact. Our stakeholders include our customers, employees, shareholders, supply chain, community, environment and world. Rather than inward focused greed, we want outward focused blessing.
3. Enjoy Hard Work
There is a great deal of confusion regarding the purpose and value of ‘work.’ To us work is the use of discretion, problem-solving or creativity to achieve a given output, and work is good! Is work hard? Sure! But, when we put in a good day’s work, we feel good about it. We know it served others and we’re proud of a job well done. Our work isn’t just a way to get a paycheck and if there are parts of our work that are needlessly burdensome, we identify and eliminate as dysfunction. Hard work that serves others generates dignity.
4. Produce quality
The process of producing consistent quality is extremely challenging. It will require high-standards of ourselves, each other, clients and partners. High-quality work stands the test of time, produces a higher level of job satisfaction and personal pride. Holding each other accountable can be interpersonally risky, but we stand up for quality.
5. Lay bricks of trust
The ability to rely on one another is the single most important foundation of any organization or relationship. Trust is built over time. We must make commitments we can keep, keep them and communicate immediately when abnormal circumstances arise. We must not just consider our own interests, but also the interests of others. We are consistently reliable both individually and as a company.
6. Courageously take risks
On the path of creating net-new products for customers, we will fail, and that is okay! Sure, we want to “be right” more often than “we’re wrong.” We take smart leaps of faith, with criteria for success and failure. In our company, failing must not produce condemnation or shame, rather put higher value on trying our very best.
7. Be real—inside, out
It’s easy to make things look good on the outside, but we want to know they are actually good on the inside. This has massive implications on all our work and results. Personally we live out lives of integrity, we walk what we talk. If we miss our goals we own up to it and say so, no covering up. We don’t misrepresent what our products can do. Integrity is sustainable.
8. Get better and better
As an organization and as individuals not one of us is perfect. We may, and should, get a lot of things right. But we will also fail. Admitting our failure and correcting for it is a source of strength, not shame. We extend forgiveness when wronged.
9. Sow to reap
We know that a harvest is the result of seeds being faithfully sown. If we don’t do the hard work of sowing, we will reap nothing. How we “sow” looks different in every team and role, but the principle remains true--we will reap what we sow.
10. Be remembered by love
Our products and services will exist for a time, but ultimately they will pass away. When all is said and done, we will be remembered by how we treated, served and appreciated those we had the opportunity to work with. Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture.