Wall Murals Don’t Bring Core Values to Life — People Do

Walk into the lobby of a modern tech company or wander through the digital corridors of its website and you’ll find a staple of modern business: company values, styled in bold colors and carefully designed typography. 

But vibrant murals do not make even the most earnest core values true — only an unwavering company culture can do that. 

Employees are more likely to live out company values when they see them enacted around them, just as they are more likely to become more deeply engaged in their work when they witness core values being applied in meaningful ways. Gallup recently reported that, when 80 percent of employees believe in the importance of their company’s core values, absenteeism dips by 41 percent, safety incidents are cut in half and quality of work soars by 33 percent. 

The mark of a great core value is the power to capture the heart of new employees — just ask Angi’s Director of Sales Dustin Cross. An ambitious salesperson at heart, Cross was surprised to find how enamored he became with Angi’s core values after joining the team. 

The value that most motivates Cross is “enjoy the journey,” he told Built In Colorado.

“When I initially joined Angi, I had a short-term goal to make a commission, and I thought I would find a different opportunity that aligned with my long-term leadership goals,” Cross shared. “However, I quickly became fully committed to making a career at Angi — the leaders allowed me to be myself, valued my opinions and created a culture that balanced life and work.”

Cross isn’t the only proponent for the power of core values that Built In Colorado encountered. We also sat down with leaders from Hotel Engine, Nymbl Science and Wunder to find out which core values transcend their place on the wall and move people in their daily work.  

 

Angi is self-described as “the home for everything home.” From repairs and renovations to products and financing, Angi strives to transform every touch point in home services.

 

What are the values that drive Angi’s culture? 

At Angi, we value building lifelong customers. This is super important to the culture of my sales team because we work directly with our service providers. One of the things I am most proud of about working at this organization is how we are always willing to adapt and try new things.

We’re currently working through two new programs that focus on customer retention. 

During the pandemic, Angi quickly transitioned employees to work from home and we’ve become a leading organization in remote work by valuing work-life balance and mental health. I truly believe that Angi strives to make sure its employees enjoy the journey, and I am proud to be a part of this organization.
 

What are some steps you take to stay true to those values? 

As a director of sales, it’s my responsibility to ensure that our sales leaders and managers are aligned with our values. To better understand our customer’s experiences and align with our value of building lifelong customers, I brought in a homeowner and a contractor who used our service and facilitated a Q&A session. 

This helped us better understand our customers’ goals and put them at the forefront of our approach. To start each day, I am the first to post in our group Google Chat for sales leaders and managers. I always start with “good morning” and a motivational quote to counteract the negativity that can creep into our daily lives. I also encourage self growth, self improvement and focusing on the little wins. 

It’s not always about making the big sale, but about growing and improving every day. Sales is a skill that can be sharpened, so the Angi value “enable great people to do great things” aligns with what we do on a daily basis.

It’s not always about making the big sale, but about growing and improving every day.” 

 

What are some traits you look for in employees that indicate their values are aligned with yours?

We've had a lot of growth in the sales organization since I’ve been in leadership. When figuring out if a prospective employee’s values match Angi’s, I am not too interested in how much sales experience they have. 

I look for prospective employees who are prepared and showcase that they truly want the job, want to work for Angi and understand what the role entails. I prioritize three things: positivity, effort and curiosity. 

Sales is a challenging field, and staying positive throughout the process is crucial. I’ve found that people who have a positive outlook tend to be more successful. You have to show you want it and be willing to put in the effort. Additionally, asking questions and seeking out information is key to growing and improving in your career. By hiring employees who demonstrate these things, Angi can continue to “enable great people to do great things.”

 

 

Hotel Engine aims to arm its customers with a powerful hotel booking platform that is simple to use and seamless to integrate.

 

What are the values that drive Hotel Engine’s culture?

At Hotel Engine, our 11 values shape every aspect of our business. We refer to our values as our DNA. Our DNA is crucial to our success because it maintains alignment throughout our teams regarding our daily behavior, expectations for ourselves and expectations for each other. 

We refer to our values as our DNA — our DNA is crucial to our success because it maintains alignment in our behavior and expectations.” 

 

By aligning ourselves with our DNA, we work cohesively and foster employee engagement, leading to positive business outcomes.

 

 

What are some steps you take to stay true to those values?

It all begins with the hiring process, where we prioritize certain qualities that we deem essential for our team members to possess. Our approach has always been to evaluate candidates based on our organizational DNA during interviews. We have recently developed a comprehensive set of behavioral interview questions that are aligned with our DNA.

Furthermore, we take into account our DNA when assessing employee performance during our calibration cycles, which occur twice a year for each team member. In addition, we incorporate our DNA into our monthly manager meetings, where we spotlight a particular value and provide guidance to managers on how to leverage that DNA in their managerial roles.

 

What are some traits you look for in employees that indicate their values are aligned with yours?

We seek evidence that all 11 of our DNA traits are exhibited by both current and prospective employees. It’s crucial for our overall achievement and the satisfaction of our team members to have a shared understanding and transparency regarding expected behaviors.

 

 

Nymbl Science provides aging adults with a fall-prevention program, accessible via smartphone or tablet, to achieve better balance. 

 

What are the values that drive Nymbl Science’s culture? 

We work really hard to practice our ethos of “putting older adults first” on a daily basis, performing gut checks to ensure that mentality takes precedence as we evolve and achieve ever-greater heights. That value drives our goals, big and small, and helps us realign as a team around our greater mission. 

We work really hard to practice our ethos of ‘putting older adults first’ — performing gut checks to ensure that mentality takes precedence.” 

 

What’s also highly valued is our stated commitment to work collaboratively and hold ourselves to outcomes. These values allow us to have honest conversations, lead with intention and encourage an inherent aptitude to trust our team to achieve what we’ve set out to do. Values, when evaluated regularly, work in the most beneficial way to guide our growth journey.

 

What are some steps you take to stay true to those values? 

We stay true to our values by holding each other accountable for the work that we do each day to further our mission of “putting older adults first.”  If we’re heads down on a goal for the quarter and someone raises a red flag on the end result, we take the time to stop and reflect, have crucial conversations and ensure what we’re working on will further our mission. 

We also take the critical step of reminding each other and ourselves on a weekly basis what we stand for, and why our company exists by reading our values aloud and asking for examples of how members of the team have lived our values in the last week.

 

What are some traits you look for in employees that indicate their values are aligned with yours?

It’s hard to pin down specific traits that will make an employee successful at Nymbl, but what feels important to me is bringing on people who reflect the diverse world we live in, who are well attuned to and actively practice listening as a means to learn and have an aptitude to come at problems from a solution-first mindset. 

We have a talented and hard-working crew in place. For those joining the team, we find that just being smart isn’t the only key to de facto success. It’s important that existing and new team members are open to new ideas, eager to learn from each other and have a strong bent to stand up for our values and understand how their work reflects those core ideals.

 

 

Wunder aims to help businesses, municipalities and schools save money by delivering clean on-site power. Wunder converts simple warehouses into electrified industrial platforms built for the future. 

 

What are the values that drive Wunder’s culture? 

I believe Wunder can trace its success to three core values: focus, speed and trust. Focus is about having a clear mission, and ensuring that initiatives across all teams are evaluated and prioritized based on how they advance that mission. This often involves making difficult choices, such as saying “no” to a custom feature requested by a large client or deciding not to pursue a tempting opportunity that would expand our goals. It’s what enables us to have transformational impact. 

Speed is closely related to focus: By prioritizing the critical and removing excess we get to move quickly, get fast feedback on what works and what doesn’t and build momentum solving hard problems. It also makes it an incredibly motivating and fun environment to work in. 

Our core values are what enable us to have transformational impact.” 

 

Finally, trust is what enables us to move with speed and focus. Wunder has an exceptionally high standard of hiring, and each team member is expected and trusted to lead projects, make important decisions and help drive their team and organization forward. As an employee, both knowing you are respected and trusted as well as knowing you can depend on all your team members is extremely motivational.

 

What are some steps you take to stay true to those values?

As a software engineer, focus and speed translate to making pragmatic code design decisions. When I design a solution for a new project, I try to identify areas where it’s important we get it right and focus my energy there. For the rest, while I always strive to write clean code, I prioritize simple solutions and don’t over-invest in unimportant details. Getting features out in front of users and having fast feedback loops makes me confident that what I’m working on is valuable and impactful.

 

What are some traits you look for in employees that indicate their values are aligned with yours?

The most important traits I look for in employees and colleagues are being intrinsically motivated by our mission, driven and intellectually honest. If we feel the urgency of addressing climate change and decarbonizing our infrastructure, and are honest in evaluating the impact of our work, everything else flows from there. We have to stay focused and move quickly to address an emergency, we have to make pragmatic decisions and we have to trust each other so we can operate efficiently and effectively as a team.