MBA2485 Guest Teacher - Robert Glazer - How to Identify and Refine Your Core Values to Build a Better Business

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, no fluff, just the good stuff with our powerful business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome, and today's episode is a guest teacher episode. That's when we bring on a guest teacher to teach their area of expertise. Today's expert is Robert Glazer, and he'll be teaching you how to identify and refine your core values to build a better business. You might be thinking, identifying and refining core values? What does that have to do with business? Well, it actually has a lot to do with everything about your business because your core values is really what you stand for.

0:50It's what attracts your customers to you. It attracts the talent you're trying to recruit. It allows you to stay on track. It allows you to make easier and more precise decisions because you know what you're for and what you're against. Many entrepreneurs start and run businesses and don't know what their core values are for their business. It's kind of like an afterthought. And then later they realize, wow, I'm having a hard time attracting the right customers, building an incredible team. But don't worry, you're in luck. We got Robert Glazer who'll be teaching us exactly how to identify and refine your core values so that you're building on solid ground.

1:30Now, if you haven't done this already in your business, it's not too late. I'm one of those people that kind of didn't do this early on in my businesses back in the day and had to revisit it, identify and refine those core values to build a stronger business. So, so much to cover here. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's guest teacher, Robert Glazer, is the founder and chairman of the board of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency. He's a serial entrepreneur, an award-winning executive, a best-selling author and keynote speaker, and he's here today to help you build a better organization by showing you the steps on how to identify and refine your core values.

2:09I'm going to pass it on to Robert now to teach his guest teacher a lesson, but I'll be back to wrap up today's episode and give my takeaways and maybe share with you a personal story on how this topic has really shaped and helped my businesses in the past. But for now, let's get into the lesson. Take it away, Robert. Hi, everyone. I'm Robert Glazer, and I'm excited to be here with you today. I wanted to start with a question. What do you value most in life? It's a simple question, but one that's not easily answered. The truth is few people can articulate their core values. Many people don't even know what they are.

2:44If I walked into a room of 100 people and asked them to share their list of core values, 98 of them wouldn't be able to share anything coherent or compelling. So if you don't know your core values, you're not alone. But here's the thing. The two people in the room who do know their core values would be able to tell you exactly what's most important to them. They'd probably have a life aligned to what fulfills them. They'd probably have a career that excites them and a strong relationship or family. These are people who are reaching their full potential, and I have to believe you want to be one of those people.

3:16So let's dig into how to get there. First, what is a core value? Simply stated, core values are the non-negotiable principles that are most important to you. Whether you know them or not, everyone has core values. They've probably driven your behavior consciously or unconsciously for most of your life. Core values show up consistently across your personal and professional life. You don't have different core values for work and outside of work. When you have a gut feeling that something you're doing just feels wrong, that's likely a sign that you're violating one of your core values. Similarly, when you're in a moment of flow, when you're doing something you love and barely feeling the time pass, That's probably a sign that you're acting in alignment with one or more of your values.

3:59These core values serve as your swim lanes that keep you moving towards the right things and away from the wrong things in your life. Having awareness of your values allows you to make good decisions proactively and intentionally. Here's an analogy. Imagine driving a very expensive sports car through a tunnel that's pitch black. Without being able to see the yellow lines on the road or the walls of the tunnel, you'd inevitably run up against one of the walls, create all the horrible scraping sounds, and cause a lot of damage. Instinctively, you'd then pull away and steer back towards the middle before probably drifting too far to the other wall and hitting it and scraping it in the same way.

4:36Eventually, you'd exit the tunnel and you'd be alive, but you'd have a badly damaged vehicle. Now imagine repeating this exercise with bright lights in the tunnel. Now you can see the lines on the road and the lines will help you stay away from the walls altogether. These lines are the boundaries of your core values, and the light in the tunnel is the awareness that comes with knowing what those values are. Let's spend a few minutes digging deeper into the specific definition of a core value. Your core values are short statements of the most important principles in your life. Your core values are not marketing slogans, and they can't be aspirational.

5:11Your values should describe who you are, not who you want to be. In this way, it takes real self-reflection and honesty to identify your core values. Core values are constant, non-negotiable principles that can apply to any facet of your life, personal, professional, family, whatever. They often come from a deep place, even childhood. Ideally, core values are two to five word phrases rather than just a word. They have a distinct definition and point of view with no ambiguity about what they mean. And they tend to work best as an adjective and a noun or an adverb and a verb. I'll give a quick example of a strong core value and a common but less effective one.

5:53A strong value is maintain physical and mental discipline. This value can be an enduring principle in all areas of your life. You can practice this at work, at home, as a parent, as a leader. It can guide your decision making both day to day and over the long run. It's action oriented and the word maintain dictates action as well. It's also a multi-word phrase. Conversely, a popular but much less effective value is integrity Integrity means a lot of different things to different people And your core value should describe your understanding of integrity Such as keeping your word or do the right thing If you have an idea of what one of your core values might be Here's a good method to test it I call it the core validator For each possible core value, ask yourself the following four questions The first two questions help you identify if a value is the right theme and the second two help you give the value the right wording.

6:48These are important, so I'll state each one twice. First question, can you use it to make a decision? These can be small decisions for how you spend your time in a given day or the big three decisions you make in your life, your partner, your chosen vocation, and where you choose to live. So again, the question is, can you use it to make a decision? Second question, does the inverse of it cause discomfort? I've coached hundreds of people through this core values discovery process. I usually know a core value is a fit when I ask the person to imagine the opposite, and they visibly wince. You want the opposite of your core value to be something you cannot stand.

7:27So again, does the inverse of it cause discomfort? Does it feel like kryptonite? Third question. Is it a phrase rather than just one word? This one is self-explanatory. Is it a phrase rather than just one word? As I explained earlier, you really need a phrase in order to get that core value locked down in a way that's usable for you. Fourth question, can you objectively rate yourself on it? You should be able to review your recent behavior against your core values list and know whether you've been adhering to those values in your behavior and recent priorities. So to repeat, can you objectively rate yourself on it?

8:05So those are the four core validator questions. Now I want to walk you through an exercise you can use to begin drafting your own list of core values. It starts with asking yourself six key behavioral-based questions that are designed to identify themes that appear across the different aspects of your personal and professional life. At this point, I recommend you pause this, grab a pen and six sheets of paper, and then resume listening once you have them. Okay, let's get started. but you also may want to pause after each question so that you can write it down. In what non-work environments are you highly engaged?

8:43In what professional roles or jobs have you done your best work? What help, advice, or qualities do others come to you for? What would you want said about you in your eulogy? When have you been disengaged in a personal or professional setting, and what was going on when that happened? What qualities and other people do you struggle with the most? Now, write out your answers to the six questions, putting each on its own sheet of paper. Six questions, six pages, and take all the time you need to do that, and then come back to where we are. Once you have a response to each question, begin to identify certain keywords or phrases that appear in your responses to each question.

9:28For example, consider the question, what help, advice, or qualities do others come to you for? My answer to this one is this. People ask me for candid advice on what they can do to improve. They expect me to share what they need to hear to get better, not what they want to hear to make them feel better. The keywords I would choose are better, improve, candor, and coaching. For questions that describe the opposite of your values, such as what qualities in other people do you struggle with the most, you'll want to use keywords that describe the opposite of your responses. For example, if you can't stand insincere people, you'd write sincerity or authenticity as a keyword.

10:08Once you've done this for each of the six questions, review your keywords. Next, you'll want to group your keywords together based on similar themes. For example, you may want to circle all the keywords that are identical or share the same sentiment across multiple responses. You can even use different colors or numbers to differentiate the groupings. For example, you might circle all the keywords related to growth in red, the keywords related to relationships in blue, and the keywords related to discipline in green, etc. Now, take out new blank pages of paper and write down all the keywords that appear multiple times across multiple questions, as well as the original answers that are associated with those keywords.

10:50The more common a theme or keyword across your responses, the more likely it is to be part of a core value. Once you've pulled everything together, you should have three to five groups of keywords or phrases and an emerging theme that summarizes each group. For example, earlier I mentioned one of my responses has keywords like better, improve, and coaching. I would group these together and label it with a theme such as growth or get better. Once you have these groups labeled by theme, you can then bring the four core validator questions I shared earlier back into play. For each theme, ask yourself these four questions, which I'll repeat one more time.

11:30Remember, the first two questions help you determine if the theme is the right one. The last two questions help you shape the theme into a well-worded core value. Here are the questions. Can you use it to make a decision? Does the inverse of it cause discomfort? Is it a phrase rather than just one word? Can you objectively rate yourself on it? Once you've run each theme through the core validator and feel good about your answers to the four questions, you're on your way to an official first draft of your core values. Now what you need to do is road test them in your life and work daily and see how they do and how they make you feel.

12:05To do that, try the following things. Write down your list and keep it somewhere you'll see every day, such as your desk at work. As you go through your daily life, see if these core values feel like the right guideposts for your behavior and priorities and the decisions that you have to make. Send them to someone who knows you well and ask them for their feedback. Then refer to your core values list when you do have to make decisions over the ensuring weeks. Note if they make you feel more confident in your decisions. If yes, you may have a good core values list. If not, keep tweaking and looking back on the process I shared earlier in this episode.

12:39I would be remiss if I did not warn you that living your core values is not always easy or painless. Sometimes it requires us to make difficult decisions that have a real financial or emotional cost in the short term. Many people exit professional partnerships and personal relationships to better live according to their values, and those breakups can be excruciating in the moment. However, it's almost always a smaller price to pay compared to continuing down the path that we know is the wrong one. For example, years ago, one of my children had a friend whose parents' judgment I simply did not trust in my gut.

13:16There was a clear values misalignment. However, our two kids got along really well, and I didn't want to create any awkwardness or jeopardize the children's friendship. One day, my child went on a playdate with the other child. From there, they went to a pool party, which we had not explicitly given our permission for, and we would not have. Our child was a relatively inexperienced swimmer, and the party was at a house where we knew there'd be a lot of adults drinking and questionable supervision. I thought about going to pick up my child as soon as I heard about the new plans, but then I thought it might lead to an uncomfortable confrontation.

13:50When my child was more than an hour late in being dropped off and we could not get in touch with a friend's parents, my wife and I both started to panic. As much as I was worried, I was also so mad at myself for having overlooked what I knew was a clear values mismatch. Fortunately, that situation turned out okay and everyone was safe. However, I did not make that mistake again. If you're willing to do the work and make the hard choices, my experience is that discovering and aligning to your core values has the potential to take your life and leadership to the next level. It may also help you reach your full potential in a way that possibly has eluded and frustrated you for many years.

14:29We all start life without our instruction manual. That doesn't mean we have to continue driving in the dark without one. No one should have to make the biggest life decisions without having their values to guide them on a clear path. If you enjoyed this episode and want to go through this exercise with more detailed guidance, including visuals, you can check out my course at www.corevaluescourse.com. The course is on demand and can be completed in about an hour. You'll also receive a workbook that helps with the exercise that I walked you through earlier. If you want to know how to align your life to your core values, also check out my book Elevate.

15:06It offers a framework to help you improve in four areas of life, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional capacity, all in alignment with your core values. You can learn more about me and my work and writing at www.robertglazer.com. Thank you for listening.

15:45by a lot of people that want to be on this podcast, that want to partner with us, want to work with us. And we have to say no 95 % of the time because there's so many people out there that don't really match our core values. If anybody has a whiff of get rich quick, we can't have them on the show. That's not our brand. That's not what we stand for. That's not what we believe in. People that are trying to show off their wealth to get credibility, not our brand. If every picture of you is leaning on a Lamborghini, that's what we're not about. It's okay to have a Lamborghini, but if you need that to get credibility, it questions the value that you would offer our audience.

16:26The best entrepreneurs in the world are not posing with their valuables. They have the confidence knowing that they know what they know and they've done incredible things. They don't need to show off their success. But this would be really hard if we didn't know our core values, if we couldn't say off the top of our head, hey, this is what we stand for. And it would make it really difficult because we'd have to spend time thinking about every decision. But when you know your core values, you can just say, hey, does this match the core values? No, it doesn't. Or yes, it does. And then you can get on with building your business.

16:57Thanks, Robert Glazer, for your great, great guest teacher lesson. If you want to learn more about Robert, his books, his podcast, and his courses, head on over to robertglazer.com. Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA show. If you love the show, want to support us, give us a rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, pop us a review. Thank you in advance for showing your love and giving us feedback. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. I read every single review so I know what works and double down on that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Sometimes we think these soft skills like values don't have as much weight as finance and marketing and business strategy.

17:37What I found is when you start growing your business, the thing that really differentiates you from the competition is those things, is those soft skills, is those things like what values, what you stand for. That's what stands out. That's what resonates with people. That's what really makes your brand unique. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

18:07Thank you.