Aligning Values With Company Mission

In today’s fast-paced business environment, change is inevitable. Whether it’s implementing new technology, restructuring teams, or shifting company policies, change management is crucial for maintaining productivity and employee morale. However, one common mistake organizations make is trying to surprise employees with changes, hoping to catch them off guard and avoid resistance. Why Surprising Employees Doesn’t Work    1.   Lack of Trust: When employees are not informed about upcoming changes, they may feel that their input is not valued. This can erode trust between management and staff, making future changes even more challenging.    2.   Resistance to Change: People generally resist change when it is imposed without explanation or input. This resistance can manifest as decreased motivation, lower productivity, or even turnover.    3.   Confusion and Misinformation: Without clear communication, rumors and misinformation can spread quickly. This can lead to unnecessary anxiety and stress among employees. The Importance of Effective Communication Effective communication is the cornerstone of successful change management. Here are some reasons why it’s essential to communicate changes clearly and transparently:    1.   Builds Trust: Open communication helps build trust by showing that employees’ perspectives are valued. When employees feel included in the process, they are more likely to support the change.    2.   Reduces Anxiety: Clear explanations of what changes are happening and why can alleviate anxiety and uncertainty. Employees are better prepared to adapt when they understand the reasons behind the changes.    3.   Encourages Participation: Communicating changes early allows employees to provide feedback and suggestions. This not only improves the change process but also fosters a sense of ownership among team members.    4.   Improves Adaptation: When employees are well-informed, they can start preparing for the changes ahead of time. How to Communicate Changes Effectively    •   Early Notification: Inform employees about upcoming changes as soon as possible. This gives them time to process the information and prepare.    •   Clear Explanations: Provide clear reasons for the changes and how they will affect employees. Use simple language to avoid confusion.    •   Open Dialogue: Encourage feedback and questions. This helps address concerns promptly and builds trust.    •   Training and Support: Offer training or support to help employees adapt to new processes or technologies.    •   Follow-Up: Check in regularly to see how the changes are impacting employees and make adjustments as needed. In conclusion, change management should never be a surprise. Effective communication is not just a courtesy; it’s a necessity for successful change management. #effectivecommunication

Culture is everything 🙏🏾 When leaders accept or overlook poor behaviour, they implicitly endorse those actions, potentially eroding the organisation’s values and morale. To build a thriving culture, leaders must actively shape it by refusing to tolerate behaviour that contradicts their values and expectations.
 The best leaders: 
 1. Define and Communicate Core Values: * Articulate Expectations: Clearly define and communicate the organisation’s core values and behavioural expectations. Make these values central to every aspect of the organisation’s operations and culture. * Embed Values in Policies: Integrate these values into your policies, procedures, and performance metrics to ensure they are reflected in daily operations. 
 2. Model the Behaviour You Expect: * Lead by Example: Demonstrate the behaviour you want to see in others. Your actions should reflect the organisation’s values, from how you interact with employees to how you handle challenges. 3. Address Poor Behaviour Promptly: * Act Quickly: Confront and address inappropriate behaviour as soon as it occurs. Delays in addressing issues can lead to a culture of tolerance for misconduct. * Apply Consistent Consequences: Ensure that consequences for poor behaviour are fair, consistent, and aligned with organisational values. This reinforces that there are clear boundaries and expectations.
 4. Foster a Culture of Accountability: * Encourage Self-Regulation: Promote an environment where everyone is encouraged to hold themselves and others accountable for their actions. * Provide Support: Offer resources and support for employees to understand and align with organisational values, helping them navigate challenges and uphold standards.
 5. Seek and Act on Feedback: * Encourage Open Communication: Create channels for employees to provide feedback on behaviour and organisational culture without fear of reprisal. * Respond Constructively: Act on feedback to address and rectify issues. This shows that you value employee input and are committed to maintaining a positive culture.
 6. Celebrate Positive Behaviour: * Recognise and Reward: Acknowledge and reward employees who exemplify the organisation’s values. Celebrating positive behaviour reinforces the desired culture and motivates others to follow suit. * Share Success Stories: Highlight examples of how upholding values has led to positive outcomes, reinforcing the connection between behaviour and organisational success.
 7. Invest in Leadership Development: * Provide Training: Offer training and development opportunities for leaders at all levels to enhance their skills in managing behaviour and fostering a positive culture. 8. Promote Inclusivity and Respect: * Build a Diverse Environment: Create a culture that respects and values diversity. Inclusivity strengthens the organisational fabric and fosters a more collaborative and supportive work environment.

You can learn a company’s real values in one meeting. Not from the posters. Not from the mission statement. From the behavior leadership tolerates. I’ve seen leadership teams spend months rewriting company values… …while ignoring toxic meetings, defensive managers, and inconsistent accountability. That’s why culture is rarely built during offsites. It’s built in ordinary moments repeated every day. Here are 8 ways strong leaders reinforce culture consistently: 1️⃣ Start meetings with clarity. ↳ Confused teams create politics. ↳ Clear priorities create momentum. 2️⃣ Reward honesty early. ↳ If employees speak up and leadership becomes defensive, honesty disappears fast. 3️⃣ Address toxic behavior quickly. ↳ High performance should never buy someone permission to disrespect others. 4️⃣ Make listening visible. ↳ Repeat back feedback. ↳ Ask follow-up questions. ↳ Show employees they were actually heard. 5️⃣ Normalize disagreement. ↳ Strong cultures can handle tension without making people feel unsafe. 6️⃣ Model emotional consistency. ↳ Teams absorb the emotional habits of leadership faster than leaders realize. 7️⃣ Keep standards consistent. ↳ Trust disappears when accountability changes based on seniority or politics. 8️⃣ Audit your meetings regularly. ↳ Ask yourself: • Do people feel safe contributing? • Are quieter voices included? • Does leadership behavior match the stated values? Because culture is not what leadership says. Culture is what employees experience repeatedly. And over time… that becomes the company people either trust or quietly leave. ___________ ♻️ Repost to remind leaders that employees watch actions more than words. 👋 Follow me (Dr. Chris Mullen) for one practical idea each week to build better habits, strengthen your leadership, and live with more intention. Join 140K+ leaders who read my BETTER AT LIFE newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gJTcghKK

Tough Talk Tuesday? If your company says Customer Success is strategic but still treats it like a support function, stop pretending. If your CS team is occupied mainly with “check-in” meetings and renewal prep instead of driving outcomes, stop pretending. If your leaders talk about trust and value but can’t show how CS moves the business forward, stop pretending. Customer Success is not a concierge desk. It is not a feel-good function. It is a growth engine. And it needs to be treated like one. That means: • CSMs who understand the customer’s business better than Sales or Product • Success plans tied to business outcomes, not playbooks • Metrics that reflect value delivered, not just effort made • A culture where CS earns its seat at the revenue table by showing up with data, direction, and urgency We are not here to smooth things over. We are here to move things forward. Five steps to start shifting from support to strategic: 🔢 1. Replace activity metrics with outcome metrics Track customer impact, not just engagement frequency and volume. Stop counting touchpoints and start measuring progress. 🔢 2. Know the customer’s business priorities by heart Treat every EBR and senior executive session like a board meeting. Tie your updates to what your customer’s CEO and CFO care about. 🔢 3. Stop asking “How can I help?” and start saying “Here is what we should do next.” Lead. Recommend. Own the play. 🔢 4. Align CS goals with company goals Revenue, retention, margin, influence - whatever matters to the business should matter to your CS team. 🔢 5. Tell the story of value loudly and often One story, once a week. Share a real example of customer success inside your company until others start doing it for you. The future of Customer Success belongs to those who stop waiting to be seen as strategic and start behaving like it. What is one move your CS team could make this week that shifts how you are seen? #CreatingTheFuture #CustomerSuccess #Leadership #Growth #ClientValue #DISQO

Building a strong company culture is a continuous process. It requires more than just defining values and hanging posters on the wall. It demands active participation and a genuine commitment to two-way communication. Too often, organizations fall into the trap of "top-down" culture building. Leaders dictate the values, but employees are left feeling unheard and disconnected. True culture change happens from the bottom up. Think of it like this: you can say you value transparency, but if you look down on people who speak up, your culture will be anything but transparent. Actions speak louder than words. So, how do we build cultures that truly resonate? • Involve employees in the process from the start. • Create safe spaces for open and honest feedback. • Empower individuals to contribute to shaping the culture. • Be consistent in your actions, demonstrating the values you preach. The result? A workplace where people are engaged and genuinely invested in the company's success. Yes, building a culture of trust and transparency takes time and effort. But the payoff is immense.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned as a founder is just how much culture shapes the way a team grows. Founders eventually hit a point where they can’t be involved in every decision. This is where things like company values can play a huge role in shaping how people operate even when you’re not in the room. When we selected our values at Decagon, we didn’t just want a list of meaningless platitudes or obvious statements. Instead, we captured the behaviors we kept seeing in the people who were driving the company forward. In other words, they were there long before we officially named them: 1️⃣ Customers are everything. 2️⃣ Relentless momentum. 3️⃣ Winner’s mindset. 4️⃣ Stronger together. I’ve also found that a good design principle is ensuring the values naturally reinforce one another. A team that listens closely to customers builds momentum. Momentum creates belief in the vision. Belief strengthens team performance. The stronger the cultural norms are established, the more they become the engine that carries everything else.

Every organization says its values matter. But the real question is whether anyone can see them. This visual captures a truth leaders often overlook. Values do not live in posters or documents. They live in the everyday cultural practices that surround people long before they read a single sentence about what the organization stands for. ↳ Symbols show up in the way you brand your work, the stories you celebrate, even the small signals people receive when they walk into a room. ↳ Heroes reveal themselves in who gets acknowledged, who is admired, and whose behavior becomes the informal standard. ↳ Rituals are the repeated moments that shape how people feel when they gather, decide, reflect, or close a year together. ↳ Practices are the actions that quietly reinforce what is truly acceptable and what is not. When these layers align, values become tangible. People experience them without needing explanations. When they do not, values start dissolving into aspiration rather than reality. This time, so close to the end of the year is a natural moment to notice the rituals that hold your culture together. The way teams close projects, express gratitude, celebrate progress, or take a pause before stepping into a new season. These small moments often reveal more about your actual values than any formal statement ever could. So if you want stronger values next year, do not start with rewriting them. Start with understanding the cultural practices that already shape how your people think, feel, and behave. That is where values either live or fade.

Best salespeople don’t chase deals. They grow relationships that feed them for a lifetime. I’ve seen markets rise and fall,  Strategies come and go,  And trends change faster than seasons. But one truth has never changed   you can’t build a lasting career by just hunting. Most salespeople behave like hunters. They chase targets, close deals, celebrate the sale…  and then start running again. It’s exciting, yes — but also exhausting. I learned long ago that the real wealth in sales isn’t made by hunters. It’s made by the ones who nurture their customers, season after season. Who prioritize relationships,  not just chase transactions. Who grow trust,  not just revenue. That mindset shifts from being a vendor to becoming a true partner change everything. And the numbers prove it: - Getting a new customer costs 5 to 25 times more  than keeping the one you already have. - A small 5% rise in retention can lift profits by as much as 90%. - Loyal customers spend almost 70% more  than new ones because they trust you. That’s not luck. So how do you make this shift? It’s not about fancy tools or buzzwords.  It’s about discipline and intent. Here’s what I’ve learned: 1. Stop selling products; start solving problems. Take time to truly understand your customer’s business  their goals, struggles, and dreams. Be the one who helps them win, not just the one who delivers an order. 2. Communicate before they ask. Don’t wait for a complaint or a call. Reach out, share insights, check on their progress. It shows you care. 3. Think long-term. A sale is not the finish line  it’s the start of a partnership. When customers feel connected,  they don’t compare prices. They just trust you. Transactions fill your month. Relationships fill your career. Sales isn’t just about closing deals. It’s about opening doors — and keeping them open for years. Stop selling fast.  Start building forever. #SalesLeadership #CustomerTrust #BusinessRelationships #B2BSales #GrowthMindset #SalesWisdom #Leadership

How can we improve communications about organizational change 🤔 📣 Communications play a pivotal role in people-centric change. High quality communications about what the transformation means for individuals and teams can help to address questions such as: Why is the transformation necessary? Who will the transformation affect? What is going to change and When? How will I be affected by the change? Some of the practical ways to ensure high quality communication about organizational transformations include (but are not limited to): ▶️ Engage in dialogue throughout the transformation process.  Creating a safe space for conversations about change can help people to rasie their concerns, hopes and fears. ▶️ Know your audience Have a firm understanding of the audience’s perspective and what information they already know and what questions or concerns they have.    ▶️ Focus on Visualization Things that people see are more likely to evoke emotions than things they hear or read. Use a variety of communication channels include videos, pictures and images. ▶️ Deliver the message with the appropriate tone and style using: ✴️ Compassion: Show the audience that you care about their perspectives and inform employees as soon as possible about the transformation including: Why, When and How the process will evolve and within what expected time span. ✴️ Clarity: Communicate clearly and repeat key messages. Just because you have communicated the message once does not mean that individuals will have heard it, internalised it or made sense of it. ✴️ Conciseness: Ensure that the message is short enough to internalize. Long, complicated sentences make written ideas hard to understand because they demand more concentration. Keep communications short, clear and concise. ✴️ Connection: Connect emotionally with the audience and provide opportunities for employees to give feedback by: ensuring appropriate channels for employee voice  and that different groups feel able to access them; actively seeking people’s ideas; and take action on feedback. ✴️ Candor. Admit what you don’t know, for instance, if an employee asks you whether there will be redundancies, and you are not sure whether they will happen or not. Your response might be: “I wish I could tell you exactly what is going to happen. We will give you updates as soon as we know them.” ▶️ Avoid overcommunicating A word of caution is required because most organizations overcommunicate about change which can lead to confusion and disengagement. Rather than overloading people with formal communications especially email build in time for conversations. Source: Hodges, J. (2024) People-centric change: engaging employees with business transformations. Kogan Page Publishing, London - Chapter 5 Joe Ferner-Reeves Lucy Carter Emma Dodworth Laura de Ruiter, PhD Lisa Cardow Inga Grigaliunaite Durham University Business School