I've worked with both nonprofits and natural & organic product makers in the CPG industry --especially herbal, skincare, clean beauty, cosmetic, chocolate, and organic food & beverage brands-- and I have regularly find that many leaders are confused about what they call values.

It's important to remember that there are three specific types of values and you, as leader, need to make sure you can separate them and use them in the right context so that your team members clearly understand what is expected and supported.

Personal Values

Personal values are an individual’s values regardless of where they work. Employees bring these values with them and often choose their employer based on a personal values "fit" with the company, even if the company doesn't publicly list values held by the employee on their website or documents.

Personal values guide our everyday lives regardless whether we are at work or home. Personal value examples include honesty, hard work ethic, or a belief in the basic goodness of humanity.

Team Values

Team-oriented values demonstrate how a group of employees wishes to work together. It sets expectations for collaboration, communication, and personal and professional behavior while on the job.

Team values can include "positive attitude," "clear communication," "share the work," "respect each other's space," etc. These are often posted on a corkboard in the cafeteria or listed in a new hire's onboarding kit to outline behavior expectations and the "unwritten rules" that make a worksite or team run smoothly. 

These are typically "internal" values and are designed for use within the team--not necessarily shared in marketing materials or brand promo.

Core Company Values

Core, company-wide values dictate how a business identifies its values for all its business interactions on a large scale -- externally-- for all of its stakeholders (including partners, investors, vendors, employees, and customers) to understand.

This type of value is the most important for determining a company’s purpose because this is the one that most directly influences the company’s north star. These are the values companies struggle to identify and commit to because they are the hardest: they're meant for everyone and they're meant to be the basis for decision-making and governance for the entire organization, thus: they carry a lot of weight.

A consultant can help with the process of identifying these values and implementing them across all departments. This can be necessary because a lot of leaders believe their values are inherently known and understood, when actually these terms need to be clearly identified and expressed so that everyone understands and is on-board.

Core company values must be outlined extremely clearly because you and your team will be held to them. These values influence every decision, large and small, in every department--from human resources to marketing to supply chain and procurement to packaging to partners and investors.

These core company values can benefit the brand in innumerable ways, including attracting the right customer, attracting top talent, retaining great employees, and serving as decision-making and purpose-defining structures.

Natural & Organic Brand Coaching

Author, herbal entrepreneur, speaker, and coach Holly Bellebuono provides powerful 1:1 coaching for natural brands and aspiring authors. Her work with natural and organic product brands, including herbal and aromatherapy, clean beauty and cosmetics, chocolate, tea and coffee, and organic food and beverage brands, can expand leadership skills, help you bounce ideas, formulate strategy, develop vision, assess your plans, review concerns and challenges, and implement innovative and profitable next steps for success. Holly provides strong business services for small to medium organic brands, including strategy and business planning, business coaching, customized course design and build, book proposal development, and speaking services for events.

With 30 years’ experience in entrepreneurship, finance, project management, strategy, and planning in both for-profits and non-profits, Holly is known as a discreet and powerful executive coach.

Holly’s business courses include the online Natural Brand Certifications which teaches the environmental and social commitments your business or brand can make, such as B-corp, organic, fair trade, WBENC, and cruelty-free. Holly’s Product Maker’s Business Bundle combines three essential courses.