The other week, we caught up as a team to discuss whether our company values still ring true. Is it time for a refresh, do we still stand by them?
As experiential designers, we often bring our clients’ company values to life within the built environment. It’s something we’re incredibly passionate about – we believe well-defined values have the power to guide a firm’s actions, unite their employees, and define their brand, particularly when they are expressed in three dimensions to create multi-layered customer experiences.
Of course, it’s not just about coming up with values – it’s about living them. We realised it was time to have a conversation about our own values, which were created in 2012. Do they still reflect what’s important to us? Do they help guide us when we collaborate with our clients?
We discussed each of our four values:
LEAD – Inspire the world around you
LIVE – Act with integrity and compassion
LOVE – Have the belief in creating a better world
LAUGH – Take a moment and appreciate something every day
By and large, we agreed our values still ring true.
When it comes to how we ‘LEAD’, we do strive to be leaders in terms of the quality of our strategic thinking and design concepts. We’re confident that our service delivery is premium. We respond to our clients swiftly, we’ll move mountains to meet every deadline, and our designers are process-driven – we are leaders in that area.
In terms of how we ‘LIVE’ with integrity, it’s something we’re passionate about. It takes integrity to talk to a client about their needs, and to identify the differences between what they might think they want, and what they actually need. Our advice is fearless; and we truly care – not just about design outcomes, but our client’s results and what they’re trying to achieve. That’s really first and foremost.
We also ‘LOVE’ what we do, and we love our clients.
As for ‘LAUGH’, we can’t deny that everybody here enjoys a laugh together. It is a big contributor to how we operate as a team, and we think it’s one of our strengths.
Having said that, there are words scattered amidst our values that may need a re-think. We’re working on these, and we’re also implementing some mechanisms to make our values feel real on a day-to-day basis inside our studio.
The best thing about this process is that it’s fun. We often lead this process for our clients, so it’s fascinating to put ourselves under the microscope for a change. Our next brainstorming session takes place next week… we’ll keep you posted.
