You start with values. What’s important to you? To your team? Identifying the gaps is a good place to start. What do you wish was more of a priority? What do you base your decisions on? These are values, and if they're central to the way you do business, they're called Core Values.

Identifying equity as a value, along with interdependence, can communicate that your company is a collaborative entity that hires people from diverse backgrounds who work together to solve problems. Other values could be efficiency, safety, or intuitive decision-making. Alone, these provide prospective employees as well as customers a sense of what is important to the company and how decisions are made.

Purpose, however, is the north star. It’s what guides the company and also provides a framework for how time is spent and how activities are prioritized. For instance, supporting the local food bank is a purpose. The company with this as its mission will provide opportunities for its employees to volunteer at the food bank, will serve on the food bank’s boards and committees, and will divert funds or resources to provide in-kind or other donations to the food bank. In this case, the values could be charity and every person’s right to a good meal; the purpose is direct support of the Harrison County Food Bank.

A company that makes home décor may have values such as generosity, excellence, and “deliver WOW!”. These may be the agreed-upon values for the team that produces its cabinetry and fabrics. This particular company's purpose may go in a couple of different directions: 1) the company’s purpose may be environmental advocacy; they may be members of the Forest Stewardship Council and they may advocate through time and money for stopping the rainforest destruction in the Amazon. 2) the company’s purpose may be social and their priority is to end child labor in cotton factories in India. Based on which purpose the leaders and team choose, the company may assist its employees in learning advocacy or volunteering in related ways, and it may donate a portion of its profits to a rainforest alliance or to child labor NGOs.

3 Types of Values

It's important to remember that there are three specific types of values and a leader needs to make sure they can separate them.

1) personal values (an individual’s values regardless of where they work;

2) team-oriented (how a group of employees wishes to work together);

and 3) company-wide values (how a business identifies its values for all business interactions and for its customers. It’s this last one that is the most important for determining a company’s purpose because this is the one that most directly influences the company’s north star.

Once you've set your values, you can identify a purpose which is more activity-driven and exemplifies the way you want to enact your company-wide values. Your purpose is visible, engaging, and far-reaching. In fact, while your company can address and work toward your purpose diligently, you may never achieve it because the idea of a worthy purpose is that it is big, life-changing, even world-changing. Your company is part of the solution and it is this ongoing endeavor that brings your values to life.