Practice What You Preach

“Your beliefs become your thought. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

Values Matter
Be honest: are you truly authentic? I often wonder if I demonstrate and practice my values, or just state them as a pretty mission or cause statement when talking with customers, clients, vendors, or in a tidy proposals or grant applications. More than ever, spin doesn’t cut it and people will “sniff” us out. Our behaviors and activities NEED to be in alignment with what we believe.

For our values matter and we particularly need to use them when we hire. You see, expertise can be learned but inherent values are the foundational glue that can make a company successful. Every staff member from top to bottom needs to believe in the values of the organization so they become embedded in the DNA of the culture. This is what creates a trusted brand that reflects integrity and authenticity.

The bottom line for all of us is really quite simple: practice what we preach.