LEADING WITH VALUES
By: Dina Dwyer-Owens
I n September 2015, Dwyer Group® Chief Operating Officer, Mary Kennedy Thompson and I had the pleasure of meeting U.S. Representative, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, at the International Franchise Association’s Action Network meeting to talk about the most pressing issues facing franchisors across the country. We were excited to meet the highest ranking woman in the Republican Party and - wouldn’t you know it - our discussion turned to living and leading with values. How Dwyer Group Leveraged Values to Build a Billion-Dollar Company It’s been a little over two decades since Dwyer Group implemented its operationalized Code of Values and a series of principles that support our organization. Live R.I.C.H (Respect, Integrity, Customer focus and Having fun in the process) guide our business decisions. We strive daily to keep these values front-and-center ensuring that everyone in the company, from the leadership team to our franchisees on the front lines, know and embrace them. After a record year of historic growth in 2016, our organization now includes 16 consumer brands, more than 2,800 franchises and over $1.4 billion in annual system-wide sales that stretch across 11 countries around the globe. People routinely ask, “How can we create that kind of successful growth for our own organization?” The common thread behind our growing, collaborative and collective success is the Dwyer Group Code of Values. It’s a topic that speaks to my heart and one of the reasons I wrote my last book “Values, Inc.” I wanted to provide insight for organizations interested in what we are known for at Dwyer Group - helping businesses stay the course as they grow. In addition, I wanted a road map to help small business owners, including franchisees and their teams, navigate their business through the use of their own Code of Values. Helping others define a Code of Values that can live and breathe in their organizations is a passion of mine and it has been a privilege to share the journey of Dwyer Group with other franchisors, businesses, the public and yes, even government.
A Code of Values Can Energize Any Workplace - Even Our Government At that first meeting with Cathy, our Code of Values message really resonated with her, so she invited me to return to Washington, DC, later that year to give a “Values in Business” seminar to her entire congressional staff. The end result of the workshop was that her office wrote out their own Code of Values…something they have begun following over the last year. Taking a page from our Live R.I.C.H message, Cathy’s office now has a message to S.E.R.V.E. Cathy wrote a guest column for TIME Magazine, in which she shared a little about her team’s Code of Values: “On Capitol Hill, which is often the epicenter of partisanship and egos, my team and I established a system of values, a motto called, “Have Fun While We SERVE” — Seek Excellence, Everybody Matters, Responsibly Own It, Vigilant Integrity, and Embrace Change — and at staff meetings we talk about how we are living these values, and where we fall short.” In the last year, since having their own values, Cathy’s office has found several ways to put them into practice. In doing so, it has helped the team reflect on how their actions impact those around them and how they can strive to be better public servants, teammates and citizens. Other leaders on the Hill have asked for copies of her Code of Values to begin implementing in their own offices. Additionally, because of the reputation and culture created by their values, her office has attracted resumes of people seeking to work in their environment. Value Truly Knows No Boundaries All of this is music to my ears. Living and leading with values knows no boundaries. It can serve a small business, it can serve a large organization, and it can even serve our country’s highest offices. For any organization, a strong code of values, put into action, provides a roadmap to the future. The bottom line (and a profitable one, too) is that a company that lives and leads with values will always outperform, outshine, outdo and outlive competitors who put ethics on the back burner.
AIRE STREAM ® | EDITION 1
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