“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.”
― José Ortega y Gasset

Take a look at this list of corporate values: Communication. Respect. Integrity. Excellence.

They sound pretty good, don’t they?

Maybe they even resemble your own company’s values.

If so, be nervous.

These are the corporate values of Enron.

And as events proved, they were meaningless.

For too many company’s Core Values are just hollow platitudes. Nice sounding words, but there almost insulting unless they’re backed up by measurable action.

Seeing a company’s values in action, being proven in real life, is one of the best factors to decide whether you’ll do business with them or not.

Think about it.

Do you spend time with people who have no values, who don’t stand for anything? Who you can’t trust?

Would you do business with them?

Probably not.

It’s the same for companies.

For us, values are a compass.

They are the code of conduct by which we operate and the standard we endeavour to do business by. They set the bar for how see ourselves and how we treat others. They’re deeply ingrained principles that guide our actions;  our cultural cornerstone.

For a values statement to be authentic, it doesn’t have to sound like it belongs on a Hallmark card. And in our experience, it shouldn’t.

But it does have to be something you actually live by on a daily basis. Value statements should be memorable and written in human language — not corporate jargon that nobody understands or likes.

By making core values resonant and real, and aggressively adhering to them, we’ve been able to clarify and simplify how we operate in terms of the work we do, who we hire, who we collaborate with and the standards we maintain. It’s been one of the most useful aspects of our brand.

So what are Dogwood’s values?

Here they are: