Company Values Matter: How to Align What You Say With What You Do

By: Jorli Peña, Founder & Managing Director

A company’s values exist whether or not they’ve been defined. They permeate everything from private conversations between employees to the method within which clients are billed. They exist in the thousands of small decisions and interactions that occur every day. Values dictate the how of business.

Once, early in my career — early enough that saying “I’m going on a business trip!” still gave me a thrill — I ran into one of my company leaders at the airport. He offered to give me and one of our clients a ride to the hotel where we were all staying. Easy, right? Nope.

While the client and I sweated through our business casual in the hot Texas sun, I watched this grown man, an industry pioneer, throw a fit at the car rental. Why? Because the car they offered him had 16,000 miles on it. He chose to make us awkwardly stand by until they granted him a newer, lower-mileage car. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident within the company’s leadership.

Before starting Artisanal Copy, I worked for and with a wide variety of businesses, most of which never bothered to outline their values, or worse, communicated their values and then blatantly ignored them. (Ouch.)

Values are not just a word or some esoteric concept. When I look back on my career, almost every time I have left an organization, my reasons for doing so could be bottled down to a clash in values. In this piece, I’ll share a bit about how we created our values at Artisanal Copy, and why we recently made an amendment.

Where We Started

The following are Artisanal Copy’s original values as of January 28, 2018:

1. We are truth tellers, stewards and artisans.
2. We enjoy our work.
3. We make each other better.
4. We are always learning and experimenting.
5. We don’t half-ass anything.
6. We ask for help when we need it.
7. We say ‘yes’ and ’no’ consciously.
8. We follow our intuition.
9. We are kind.

I created these values as part of a company rebrand in late 2017 — attempting to articulate what makes us unique. I based them on:

1. What was important to me personally as the founder and managing director (e.g. aspirational values), and

2. On the actions of our team and what we were doing, day in, day out (e.g. actual values/strengths).

Sitting here, two years down the road, a few of these values pop out as the touchstones that genuinely guide our work and culture:

We make each other better is a biggie. I can’t count the number of times I have messaged these words to our team members or mentioned them on calls. We make each other better by acting as each other’s editors and sounding boards. We make each other better by collaborating on tricky projects. We make our clients better through editing their content with love and diligence. It’s a statement and a process that continues to resonate with me both as a professional creative and as an entrepreneur.

We are truth tellers is another of our frequently underscored values. Sometimes, if we feel that it is in the best service of the work, it is necessary to push back on our clients. Even when it’s uncomfortable. So much of our power as a third-party resource lies in our objectivity. We are able to step outside of a project and honestly assess its direction.

Where We’re Going

Recent events in our world — both the pandemic and the anti-racism movement — led me to reassess our values. The original nine still feel relevant. They still inform our work every day. However, I recently realized that there is a tenth value I am embarrassed never made this list to begin with.

Our team is mostly women and mostly white. That needs to change. There is strength and beauty in diversity — diversity of ages, of races, of backgrounds. But change does not come through happenstance, it comes through specific intention. We must name the change and then live it. The makeup of our company and our clients is a reflection of our values in action, so we must amend our values to, once again, reflect the how of our day-to-day business.

Artisanal Copy’s Values as of June 24, 2020:

1. We are truth tellers, stewards and artisans.
2. We seek and embrace diversity.
3. We enjoy our work.
4. We make each other better.
5. We are always learning and experimenting.
6. We don’t half-ass anything.
7. We ask for help when we need it.
8. We say ‘yes’ and ’no’ consciously.
9. We follow our intuition.
10. We are kind.

Your company’s values are a living thing. It’s important to identify them, and it’s just as important to revisit them and make necessary adjustments. Growth and positive change can only happen after the acknowledgement of mistakes and shortcomings.

I fully anticipate that a time will come when we need to add an eleventh or twelfth value to the list. I look forward to it. It’ll mean we’re growing.