Using Your Values to Create Value

In the book “Good to Great”, Jim Collins shows how every great company has a fundamental set of core values. At 3M, their core set of values includes “Value and develop our employees’ diverse talents, initiative and leadership.”

When Dr. Spencer Silver first invented the unique, repositionable adhesive that made Post-It notes possible, there was no one at 3M who could figure out a commercial application for the adhesive. Nine years later along came Art Fry, a new product development engineer at 3M who had a problem. Art was a tenor in his church choir. His bookmarks kept falling out of his hymn book. Not wanting to lose his place, Art came up with the idea to use Dr. Silver’s adhesive to coat a piece of paper that could be positioned over and over to mark each week’s choir music.

What made Fry’s inspiration come to life was his passion for the idea, which was supported by the entrepreneurial spirit which is at the core of 3M’s culture that values their employees’ initiative and leadership. Fry was also helped by an official “bootlegging” policy that let him spend 15% of his time on a project of his own choosing (another policy that promotes 3M’s core values).

There are now 600 Post-It products being sold in more than 100 countries.

Coach Kevin’s Challenge:

Great companies have a defined set of core values that drives the culture and people of the organization to deliver value to their stakeholders. Focus energy on these areas of core values:

• Make sure that your core values are written down and visible to all employees
• Design your compensation and reward systems to align employee action with your core values
• Recognize those people who are outstanding at pursuing core values to deliver results (Art Fry was elected to the 3M Circle of Technical Excellence)

Are your people living by the core values of your company?