In 2019, the Butler team committed to living out our core values and integrating them into our work. As we enter 2020, we wanted to take a look at how a year of emphasizing and actualizing our core values affected our team – and brought us closer together.
Nurture Creativity
To nurture our team’s creativity, we conducted a small group exercise that helped us think like the business owners we work with. Using a limited set of LEGO pieces, a limited amount of time, and the power of our own minds, each group had to concept, create, and pitch a product designed to “help people organize their busy, cluttered lives.”
This group exercise was a ton of fun, and you can find the rules and a rundown of our teams’ products and presentations here. You can also see that our CEO got a bit excited about his group’s product, as he created a full brand identity system and marketing message for it.
Find & Bridge Gaps
To help our team focus on Finding and Bridging Gaps, we took a trip to Fresno Escape Room – where we conducted an exercise in problem solving and team dynamics. Or as someone less verbose might put it, we escaped.
Because we split into two teams to tackle the escape room, we were able to review each teams’ roles and processes to see which worked better (and why). We apply this sort of review to our actual work as well, to help us Find and Bridge Gaps even when we’re not battling an escape room.
Dream Big, Work Hard
When we think of Dreaming Big and Working Hard, we think of our fine friends at The Futur. Which is why, to inspire our team, we spent a day touring The Futur’s Santa Monica headquarters, talking to their team leaders, and thinking about how we can adapt some of their processes and ideas for use at Butler.
Reject the 3 C’s (Criticize, Condemn, Complain)
The Butler Branding team strives to build each other up – and not criticize, condemn, or complain about other people’s actions. To test our team building mettle, we decided to hike the Mist Trail at Yosemite National Park together last May:
While we didn’t quite nail this core value that day (there was for sure some complaining from our less outdoorsy team members), we did adhere to the spirit of Rejecting the 3 C’s. Working together, we surmounted the Mist Trail while building each other up and creating a day that none of us will forget.
Radically Serve
Perhaps our most important core value is to Radically Serve our clients. We pride ourselves on doing not just what our clients ask of us, but going above and beyond as we help them pursue their missions.
In July, we made a point of going above and beyond for a client that serves our community each and every day. Every year, KYJO hosts Big B.A.N.G. Weekend – an annual event that allows hundreds of local kids to play football alongside pro and college players, inside Fresno State’s Bulldog Stadium.
In addition to our typical Big B.A.N.G. marketing and promotional efforts, we chose to volunteer at KYJO’s Big B.A.N.G. pre-game party, to make sure the event went off without a hitch. We also, of course, had a bit of fun, which leads perfectly into our next core value …
Have Fun
Has your team faced down a group of laser-gun-wielding eight year olds and lived to tell the tale? If not, you’re not having enough fun:
While the Butler team always has fun at work, we like to intentionally set aside time to recharge our batteries together. There’s nothing quite like nearly losing a game of laser tag to a bunch of eight year olds to remind you that there’s more to life than work – and that you should have some fun together every once in a while.
Drive Change
As mentioned above, the Butler team knows there’s more to life than work. Which is why, when it came time for us to focus on Driving Change, we decided to set goals for improving our personal lives.
In October, each Butler team member focused on one thing they could do to not just work more effectively, but live more effectively. A lot of our team focused on getting their sleep schedules right, while the rest of us focused on exercising, learning, or eating better.
Overall, our results were mixed – and you’ll likely see some of the fallout from our successes and failures later this year (there were rewards and punishments to be had). But working together kept us accountable and gave some of us the boost we needed to achieve our goals.
Openly & Honestly Communicate
Openly and Honestly Communicating with your coworkers can be tough. There’s a line between “honesty” and “overstepping” that’s sometimes difficult to see – and it takes only one accidental misstep to set your team at odds with each other.
One of the ways we encourage positive, open communication is by helping our team understand each other’s point of view. That (plus the fact that we wanted to have a bit of fun) is why we played a hilarious round of Blind Superlatives – to help our team see what we really think about each other.
Give Back
In late November, we Gave Back to the Fresno community in partnership with one of our more recent clients:
At Fresno Mission‘s annual Thanksgiving outreach event, we joined a host of other volunteers who served thousands of meals to the hungry and less fortunate. We were incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside Fresno Mission’s staff, and awed by the number of people that the Mission serves each Thanksgiving.
Be Humble & Gracious
And finally, in December, we chose to show you all our gratitude by giving away the entire Butler Box Agency Scaling Curriculum.
As we discussed how to celebrate this core value, we quickly decided that we did not want to “brag” about being humble. Part of Being Humble and Gracious is simply accepting the good things that have happened to you, and finding a way to return that positive energy to the world.
That, more than anything, is why we chose to give away our Agency Scaling Curriculum over the course of five days. We recognized that we were lucky enough to have an incredible 2019 (in part because we focused on celebrating our core values) – and we wanted to help others like us have a fantastic 2020.
Our Core Value Celebration Continues
At the time of this writing, the new year is still approaching. And we’re still thinking about how to level up our core value celebrations (and continue integrating our values into our work) in 2020.
But rest assured – we’re just as committed to living out our core values now as we were at the start of 2019. Everything we do echoes from those values, which is why we take the time to make sure we know what they mean, how to actualize them, and how to incorporate them into not just our work – but our lives.
