Just about every company I’ve worked with over the past twenty years has a list of core values that is proudly displayed on a handsome plaque in their corporate headquarters and visible to all on their company website. But if you were to ask the custodian, a delivery driver, or the receptionist that works for the organization to name even one of those values, you’d be hard-pressed to get anything beyond a very confused look.
Not so with Team Honey Badger, one of the largest franchise owners of Domino’s Pizza on the planet. Susan Graves owns THB, and she is determined to make 100% certain that every team member throughout her 138 Dominos stores operating across a ten-state territory not only knows their impressive core values but lives and breathes them in the workplace.
Team Honey Badger (THB) Values
Accountability
Empathy
Passion
GRIT
Selflessness
Susan had me speak to her management team back in 2019 and invited me back to speak again at their first ‘Team Rally’ in four years (due to the pandemic) this week in Minneapolis.
Susan goes all out for THB leaders and store managers at these rallies. They’re held at first-class hotels where her people are flown in from out-of-state, treated to amazing meals, royally entertained, given a load of cool company SWAG, and also get to experience amazing programming designed to make them better leaders.
*This is not unusual for employees of many Fortune 100 companies, but it is extremely rare for a franchisee of a major brand to go to this expense for store manager-level employees, many of whom have never before been on an airplane or checked in to a hotel.
Susan Graves, Eric Chester, Blake Graves
In our pre-event call, I asked Susan and her son Blake (pictured) what they wanted me to focus on this year. They replied, “Please help us teach our managers how to drive our core values deep into the cultures of each of their stores so that every team member knows them, understands them, and exemplifies them.”
My mission was clear.
I spent a half day with these committed young leaders showing them how to:
- HIRE around these values. (Interviewing candidates to make sure their personal values align with those of THB.)
- TRAIN around these values. (Inculcating these values in the learning process throughout each employee’s tenure going beyond the typical two-week training period.)
- DISCIPLINE around these values. (Correcting behavior that is not in alignment with a specific value while using the exact word and meaning of that value in a teachable moment.)
- REWARD around these values. (Actively seeking out every opportunity to recognize and acknowledge an employee who demonstrates one or more of the THB values to make certain those attitudes and behaviors are repeated, and doing so in a way that other team members see how the personification of these core values is celebrated.)
- MODEL these core values. (Understanding how crucial it is for each manager to become the daily example and living testimony of each value, so much so that whenever a team member ever hears the mere mention of any one of those words (i.e., core values), the very first image that pops into their head is that of their manager.)
Your workplace culture hinges solely upon the attitudes, beliefs, and performance of the people in your organization. If you’re not consciously and continually focused on inculcating your organization’s core values with the same intensity and determination as Susan Graves is throughout Team Honey Badger, then you might as well take down that handsome plaque in your boardroom.
