Celebrating Core Values: Reinforcing Behaviors That Shape Your Culture

Last quarter, a senior leader at one of our clients faced a situation that didn't have an easy answer. Rather than defaulting to what was fast or convenient, he leaned into their values. He slowed down, asked better questions, and chose the harder, better path.

The result was an outcome that created real value for the company. But more importantly, it was one of those moments that remind you what your culture is actually made of.

One of the most important jobs a CEO has is stewarding their culture. And in my experience, the best way to do that is by finding the stories of when your people lived your core values and sharing them widely.

Core value awards are how you make that visible. The CEOs who do this consistently show their teams what "great" looks like.

Why Core Value Wins Matter

To be clear: you are not trying to change people's core values. You are identifying the behaviors that reflect your company's values, reinforcing them consistently, and attracting people who naturally live them.

If you do not actively recognize values in action, your culture will default to reinforcing whatever gets results in the short term, often at the expense of long-term alignment.

Core value wins make the invisible visible.

How to Identify Core Value Wins

Look for moments under pressure

Values show up most clearly when something is at stake.

• A leader who chose integrity over speed.

• A team member who prioritized people over profit.

• A decision that reflected long-term stewardship over short-term gain.

These are the stories worth elevating.

Focus on behavior, not just outcomes

Results matter. Behavior is what scales culture.

Instead of highlighting that someone closed a major deal, highlight that they walked away from a misaligned opportunity to uphold your values.

Capture the story while it is fresh

Build the habit of asking what happened, what made it hard, and what value was demonstrated. This creates a steady pipeline of meaningful stories.

How to Reinforce and Scale These Wins

Make it a leadership discipline

Start every leadership meeting with core value wins. Each leader brings one or two examples, a clear connection to a value, and a brief story behind it. This builds alignment at the top.

Teach through stories

When sharing a core value win, describe the situation, the tension, and the decision that was made. The emotional detail is what sticks and gives your team something to model.

Make it visible across the organization

Do not let these stories stay in leadership meetings. Share them in all-hands meetings, internal updates, and quarterly off-sites in a company culture book. Repetition builds clarity.

Create meaningful recognition moments

Take your strongest stories and elevate them further with quarterly core value awards, annual recognition tied to specific values, and peer-nominated awards across teams. Every award should be tied to a real story and a clear behavior.

Final Takeaways

Culture is not what you say. It is what you consistently reinforce and reward. You are not trying to change people. You are building an environment where the right behaviors are recognized, celebrated, and repeated.

Reflection Questions

1. What are one to two core value stories your entire company should hear right now?

2. Are your values being taught through stories or just stated in words?

3. What behaviors are you currently reinforcing, intentionally or unintentionally?

Done well, this practice aligns your team, accelerates execution, and ensures your organization scales in a way that reflects your values, not just your goals.

The Power of an AI Advisory Board: How to Get Started

Even the most seasoned CEOs face times when the path forward is unclear, the decisions carry weight, and guidance feels out of reach. In those moments, what if you could draw on the wisdom of leaders like Warren Buffett, Martin Luther King Jr., Sara Blakely, or Nelson Mandela?

An AI Advisory Board makes that possible. By thoughtfully curating the perspectives of history’s most effective leaders, you can systematically bring their insights into your most important decisions. Instead of defaulting to generic advice or falling back on your own limited vantage point, you can widen your lens—challenging assumptions, surfacing blind spots, and leading with greater conviction.

How to Get Started

Creating your AI Advisory Board is simpler than it sounds.

1. Select Your Voices
   Choose 10–15 leaders whose wisdom reflects both your personal values and your organization’s biggest challenges.

2. Craft Thoughtful, Specific Prompts
   Ask targeted questions that bring their distinct perspectives to life:

• “How would Peter Drucker frame this management challenge?”

• “What assumptions would Jim Collins push me to re-examine?”

• “How might Maya Angelou guide my decision toward greater integrity?”

3. Make It a Practice
   The power is in consistency. Incorporate this virtual board into your regular decision-making process, not just when you feel stuck. Over time, these diverse voices will shape the way you approach challenges, embedding wisdom and discipline into every major choice.

4. Don’t Forget the Human Perspective
   AI can broaden your perspective, but it can’t replace the wisdom of your team, customers, and family. Before making major decisions, test your thinking with the people who live with the outcomes every day.
   

Our AI Advisory Board at PFD

At PFD Group, we’ve intentionally built an AI Advisory Board that mirrors our own values of growing to give, serving as confidants, and stewarding lives around us. Each voice was chosen with care:

• Martin Luther King Jr. & Maya Angelou – for their moral courage and clarity when helping CEOs navigate ethical complexities.

• Warren Buffett & Jim Collins – for their long-term, disciplined perspective on building organizations that endure for decades.

• Nelson Mandela – for his resilience and transformational leadership in the face of seemingly impossible challenges.

• Sara Blakely – for her bold innovation and ability to reimagine possibilities in ways that expand influence and impact.
  

Each of these voices brings a different kind of wisdom. Together, they remind us that great leadership isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about staying true to your values while moving forward with focus and conviction. That’s the balance that helps leaders grow their organizations and spend their lives on what matters most.

Final Take Aways

Building your AI Advisory Board is not about replacing trusted mentors or wise peers. It’s about supplementing their input with a disciplined practice of seeking wisdom from history’s greatest leaders.

Done consistently, this practice doesn’t just sharpen decision-making. It keeps your decision-making rooted in your BHAG, centered on your core values, and connected to the broader mission of your organization.

The Hedgehog Concept: Simplifying Strategy for Lasting Impact

With every season of growth comes a wave of new opportunities. The key is knowing which ones truly align with your mission.

Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Concept, first introduced in Good to Great, offers a timeless, clarifying framework. Inspired by an old Greek parable—“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”—rather than chasing every opportunity, this concept helps leaders to build with intention.

While the fox dashes from tactic to tactic, the hedgehog survives and thrives by doing one thing exceptionally well: rolling into a ball of spikes no predator wants to challenge.

The Three Questions That Define Strategic Clarity

For leaders committed to building organizations that last, Collins poses three questions that guide your “hedgehog” focus:

• What can you be the best in the world at?
  Not just what you’re good at—but where you can lead your industry with unmistakable authority.

• What drives your economic engine?
  The key financial metric or model that fuels your organization’s long-term sustainability and scale.

• What are you deeply passionate about?
  The work that stirs your soul—the mission that energizes your team and aligns with the legacy you’re building.

Where these three circles overlap, you find your Hedgehog Concept: the core of your strategy, the heart of your identity, and the engine of enduring impact.

Focus is a Leadership Advantage

We often remind our clients that the most successful leaders build from a place of clarity. The Hedgehog Concept isn’t just a strategy tool—it’s a mindset. One that helps you simplify complexity, align your team, and accelerate toward your vision with conviction.

As your organization continues to scale, revisit your Hedgehog. Make the choice to focus. And trust that doing so will bring both short-term momentum and long-term legacy.

The Secrets to Building Leaders Who Can Stay Ahead of Your Company’s Growth

As organizations scale from $10M to $500M+, one of the most overlooked, yet critical growth factors is the evolution and growth of the senior leadership team.  The job requirements of the COO or Chief People Officer for a company with $500M in revenue are more complex than the job requirements for the same functions when the company has $10M in revenue.  The Team that got you where you are can be, but rarely is, the same team that can take you to the next level.  That’s not a failure - it’s a natural, but often painful, evolution.  

One of a CEO’s core responsibilities is assessing a leader’s ability to grow - in hard and soft skills - at, or faster than the rate the company is growing.  A leader’s ability to grow faster than the company is growing means that they have capacity to see, chase and capitalize on opportunities as they arise.  Robert Glazier has a great graphic illustrating this concept in the first chapter of his book, Elevate Your Team: Empower Your Team To Reach Their Full Potential and Build A Business That Builds Leaders.

When a leader is a great cultural fit, but you see the needs of a role outgrowing that leader’s capabilities, you need to determine whether that leader has the capacity to grow with investment & training, or whether you can best serve the company AND the leader by engaging authentically and openly with the leader on both their core strengths and the future needs of the role.  

Transparently planning with a leader for them to transition into a role that will continue to align with their talents will engender loyalty. Bringing in the talent that has the skills to help you achieve your growth objectives will enhance your team’s trust in your commitment to achieving your vision. This means 1) evaluating leaders for core strengths & future scalability, not just current performance, 2) identifying leadership gaps before they hinder growth and investing in their growth, and 3) committing to authentic, transparent conversations with your leadership team.  This is how mission-driven CEOs can intentionally build teams that grow with the business - while maintaining culture, clarity, and vision.

Reflections:

1. How have the needs and skills of key organizational functions changed? Do the team members in those roles have those skill sets - hard and soft? I.e. Would you enthusiastically re-hire each person on your team based on the current needs of the role?

2. Which members of your current leadership team are thriving - and which are struggling to scale with the business?

3. How would the needs and job requirements of each leadership role change if your business doubled (or 10x’ed) in size in the next 24 months?

Leading With Vision, Not Fear

One of the most powerful truths in business and life is this: you become what you think about most. This principle, articulated by Napoleon Hill, is not just symbolic — it’s practical. Leaders who dwell on challenges, setbacks, and competition often find themselves trapped in a reactive cycle. In contrast, those who direct their mental energy on where they want to go, with a focus on vision, opportunity, and growth, cultivate progress. The key isn’t ignoring problems—it’s approaching them with a solutions-first mindset.

Every scaling organization hits walls: team misalignment, cash flow pressure, changing market conditions. But the most successful entrepreneurs and CEOs don’t focus their mental energy on what’s broken. They keep their mind fixed - even in the face of challenges and setbacks - on what they are trying to achieve — a thriving culture, scalable systems, or a breakthrough product. This intentional focus shifts how they show up daily, make decisions, and communicate with their teams. Vision becomes contagious when it’s held consistently and authentically.

This doesn’t mean we avoid problems, competition, or even fear in an uncertain environment. It means we see them for what they are—temporary obstacles through which we have to navigate - with an eye on our vision and an unwavering commitment to our core values. By training ourselves and our leadership teams to focus on our desired future, we condition our organizations for problem-solving, collaboration, and growth. Scaling up isn’t just about building systems to grow; it’s about leading with vision, clear and frequent communication, disciplined execution, and consistent action toward what matters most.

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3 Key Scaling Up Questions

• What are we currently focusing on that might be holding us back rather than moving us forward?

• How clearly and consistently are we articulating our vision for the next 12-36 months to our team?

• What is the solution to our top constraint that will help move us forward?

Olympics Miracle on Ice - The power of coaches and leaders to set the stage

During my senior year of high school, my varsity soccer team made it to the state finals. I'll never forget our coach telling us that we had exceeded his expectations—even though we ultimately lost the deciding game.  That experience taught me about the power of a great coach and leader to create an environment where a team can perform at its full potential, and sometimes even beyond it. A prime example of this is the 1980 US Hockey team.

Actionable Leadership from an Olympic Coach

During the 1980 Winter Olympics, with the Cold War as a tense backdrop, the USA Men’s Hockey team was set to play the Soviet Union in the championship game for the gold medal. Herb Brooks, the USA Head Coach, didn't just prepare his team for a game—he inspired them to achieve the impossible.  Through the power of his pregame speech, Brooks created a space where the team could transcend expectations and reach greatness.

“Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ‘em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, WE are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It’s over.” — Herb Brooks, 1980 Olympic USA Men’s Hockey Coach

Herb set the stage for his team to believe in themselves and achieve the extraordinary by defeating the Soviet Union 4-3.. Similarly in the business world, the power of a leader to inspire their team cannot be underestimated.  Just as Brooks ignited a belief in his players, leaders in high-growth companies have the opportunity to create a culture where teams rise to the occasion, seize the moment, and exceed expectations.

Applicable Best Practices for CEOs and Leadership Teams

1. Acknowledge Reality but Inspire Possibility: Great coaches don’t shy away from the truth. They acknowledge the reality of the situation but frame it in a way that inspires hope and action.

2. Focus on the Team’s Strengths: Highlight what the team has accomplished and what they are capable of. This builds confidence and a sense of purpose.

3. Create a Sense of Urgency: Impart a sense of the unique opportunity at hand. Make it clear that the moment is special and worth giving everything for.

4. Positive Reinforcement: Use language that inspires and uplifts  rather than criticizes or diminishes. Even if the odds are against them, teams need to believe that they will succeed.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

• Who are some of the most inspiring coaches you’ve had or witnessed?  What techniques did they use?

• How are you setting the stage for your leadership team to reach its full growth and impact potential?

• What other leadership lessons do you apply from your sports experience to your companies?

Unleash Your Team's Genius with the Working Genius Model

We all have natural gifts and when we better understand our unique strengths and frustrations, the transformation we see in our work and life is amazing. You may already be familiar with The Working Genius model, by Patrick Lencioni, and it is often one of the first assessments that I use with all my clients. It goes beyond just identifying your working geniuses or frustrations - it also helps you understand how they either fuel your energy and motivation or take away from it. By recognizing the specific types of work that bring you joy and excitement, you can harness that energy to achieve peak performance.

In its most simplistic form, the Working Genius model identifies six types of working genius or frustrations. Your geniuses fuel your energy and your frustrations take away from it. These are:

Wonder: This type of genius is skilled at asking questions and exploring new possibilities. They are curious and have a natural ability to see the bigger picture.

Invention: This genius is creative and innovative. They excel at generating new ideas and finding unique solutions to problems.

Discernment: This genius has a keen eye for detail and is skilled at making judgments and decisions. They can analyze information and weigh different options effectively.

Galvanizing: This genius is a natural leader who can rally others around a common goal or vision. They inspire and motivate their team members to achieve greatness.

Enablement: This genius is excellent at supporting others and helping them succeed. They provide the necessary resources, guidance, and encouragement for individuals or teams to thrive.

Tenacity: This genius possesses exceptional perseverance and determination. They have the ability to push through challenges and obstacles with unwavering resolve.

Why is understanding your working geniuses and frustrations so important? Individuals and teams are better equipped to focus on tasks and projects that align with their natural abilities, leading to:

Increased Productivity: When you understand your unique strengths, you can focus more on tasks that align with your areas of genius. This leads to increased energy and productivity as you are doing what you love and are naturally good at.

Improved Collaboration: By understanding the unique geniuses of each leadership team member, teams can benefit from improved trust and cohesion for more effective collaboration.

Enhanced Job Satisfaction: When you're able to work in your area of genius, job satisfaction naturally increases and you feel valued and successful.

Leadership Genius Gap Awareness: Being aware of the specific skills and strengths that are missing from your team is crucial for effective leadership. This awareness enables you to understand what qualities to prioritize when recruiting new members.

The Working Genius assessment offers a valuable tool for individuals and teams to maximize their potential. By understanding and leveraging their unique strengths, individuals can focus on tasks that align with their areas of genius, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction. It allows teams to collaborate more effectively by recognizing and utilizing each team member's unique genius. The Working Genius assessment promotes a work environment where individuals and teams can thrive and succeed. 

Contact me if you are interested in learning more.