Over the past few months, Blackink IT began working with ADVISA, an Indiana-based leadership and culture consultancy, to examine Blackink’s company culture. In doing so, it was our goal that ADVISA would be able to help us identify both our strengths and opportunities for improvement, so that Blackink could continue building a positive culture that employees are proud and excited to take part in.
The Importance of Core Values
One of the key initiatives in working with ADVISA was reviewing our core values to ensure that they still resonated with employees, and that they still accurately represented how Blackink wants to approach every workday. Core values are the foundation of an organization’s culture, mission, and vision, and are key capabilities that each employee, regardless of position or title, embodies in their daily professional lives. Every member of the team should demonstrate behaviors that tie to each value consistently, and everyone should own the culture.
Why They Were Updated
In reviewing our values, our goal was to reflect on where we currently stood, and determine what changes would allow us to obtain our desired culture. In this process, we discovered that our original core values were slightly leaning toward “wall art” and lacked an all-encompassing design. Although we were proud of this original set, we saw an opportunity to create a more concise and wholistic set of values that, in turn, would assist every employee in more directly connecting their work and actions to these values.
The Process of Updating Our Values
Blackink then worked to update our values based upon employee surveys, company goals, our mission and vision, how we strive to serve clients, and several other important factors. Once the updated values were decided upon, employees broke into focus groups and created a common census on our new core values, established what behaviors associate with each new value, and determined how this all aligned with the company’s mission and vision. Blackink’s culture depends on every employee, so it was imperative that everyone had a “thumbprint” in the conception of the updated culture.
In all of these employee discussions, we found some key concepts we kept coming back to as we explained Blackink’s intentional or desired culture. As common themes began to emerge, we realized that the fundamental core of our culture revolved around people and our desire to connect, impact, and improve each other and our clients. Below are our new core values, and a little about what they mean to us and how they reflect our culture at Blackink IT.
Blackink IT's Core Values
Humanity:
People are at the foundation of all we do. This value is meant to celebrate the diversity of the individual strengths that contribute to our ability to meet challenges as a group, value the people we interact with, and speak and talk to others not as objects, but as individual human beings. We aim to recognize and celebrate each other’s accomplishments and achievements as a team.
Excellence:
Excellence is all about being purposeful in our actions and holding ourselves accountable to results – including our impact on others. We strive for a certain level of distinction across all aspects of our work, and act with a sense of urgency. We may not have the answer now, but we will work tirelessly to find the right solution. We aim to stay current in our industry, while also showing pride in our work and going well above and beyond what is expected.
Ingenuity:
Ingenuity is focused on continuous improvement through technology, innovation, imagination, and our experience to deliver value to clients. We face challenges with creative solutions, open mindedness, and by being receptive to feedback. Our aim is to maximize efficiency and productivity by utilizing automation, proactive management, and thinking outside of the box.
Should You Consider a Core Value Update?
It is vitally important for companies to take a moment to reflect on where they are, and where we want to go. Core values are the foundation on which a business operates and grows. No matter what role you have in an organization, stop and take a moment to reflect on your own organization’s values. Do they resonate with you, and can you see you and your co-workers leaning into them throughout each workday?
At Blackink IT, we are passionate about embracing our core values. In everything we do – working as a team, creating solutions, interacting with clients, etc. – we aim to incorporate our values. Interested in learning more about how Blackink IT utilizes humanity, excellence, and ingenuity in the service that we provide to our clients? Contact us today - we're excited to meet you!
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