Shared values are important for any business

When it comes to a company's culture – that vital vein of humanity running through an organization – having shared values across the team is essential. If your associates don't share in the company's core values, how can they be fully on board with it and its direction? ?

?Ultimately, this starts with trust. Trust is the foundation of a successful team and everybody – no matter what their role within the company – needs to earn that. Trust and shared values go hand-in-hand when building a great team, allowing everybody to grow together as a functioning unit. And, when you're continually listening to the people around you and adjusting to accommodate their evolution, you create a team that fully understands the vision of the organization and the part they play in its success. ?

At Goodyear, engaging and enabling each and every one of our associates to identify and achieve their full potential is an essential element of the Inspiring Culture pillar of our Better Future framework. We actively seek out the best possible people to join our team, nurture their talents, ensure they feel included, and give them the space and opportunity to grow. From this, sharing the values of Goodyear inevitably becomes a natural component of their professional selves. ?

Why shared values are important ?

When our associates fully believe in Goodyear's mission, we can all work toward the same goals. This benefits everybody: their immediate colleagues, the business at large, our stakeholders, and our customers. The values we hold are critical to the ongoing development of the business, so it's not enough that we simply talk about the things that are important to us – we have to believe in our message. When everybody gets on board, that message becomes unbreakable.

It's down to the leaders in a company to set an example in the way they act on these values. Associates should be able to look to their leaders to learn from both their mistakes and their victories — constantly striving to improve is what makes the whole team succeed. ?

Making your values clear ?

Clarity of messaging is guided by strong leadership. Leaders – and the broader company – have to show up consistently and apply the organization's principles wherever they go. Our values play a huge part in what has given us 125 years of success and what will bring 125 more, so we need to be open about them at every turn. ?

We're at an interesting point in history where people are re-evaluating what they want. That puts us in the fortunate position of being able to ask: “where do you envision yourself?" and “how can I help you get there?" As leaders, we're continuously thinking about how we lead and support our associates – aspects of Goodyear that are inextricably tied to our values. ?

The importance of consistency ?

Consistency is part of Goodyear's lifeblood, and it comes naturally when we spend so much of our time in professional mode. We spend more waking hours at work than during any other time – and yes, it's work, but most people want more than that. They want to be part of an organization that's making a difference, that's really walking the walk, that's contributing to the world in a way where they get to feel the benefits of in their personal lives as well. ?

In order to have an inspiring culture, you need a business that people are proud to be part of. We started collecting associate feedback to find out how our global team felt and what we could do to improve their professional lives back in 2018, and we're successfully using the insights collated from that to drive engagement and better understand associate needs over a period of great worldwide unrest and change. ?

A business like Goodyear impacts so many people – tens of thousands of associates and millions of customers across the globe – and we simply wouldn't have achieved this without consistency across our values. We have a tremendous opportunity to make a difference in people's lives, and it's our responsibility to grasp it with the hands of every associate that believes in what Goodyear does. ?