In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser discusses organizational core values, what they mean for an organization, and how Bryghtpath approached developing our core values.
Related Episodes & Blog Posts
- Bryghtpath’s Core Values
- Episode #116: Tools We Use At Bryghtpath (2021 Edition)
- Episode #143: A Typical Week at Bryghtpath
Episode Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, Principal and Chief Executive here at Bryghtpath, and in this week’s episode, I want to talk a little bit about the idea of core values for an organization, for a non-profit, for your company, and talk about how we have put these into place here at Bryghtpath. I think these are important because when we think about what a company means to its clients, to its owners, to its employees, and what it represents in the marketplace, it starts with the values of that organization. And over the past several months, one of the things that we’ve been working on from a strategy standpoint here at Bryghtpath is really defining and with everyone involved at all levels of the organization our core values, what has attracted us to build our own company, has attracted our employees to come and work here with us, and what we think attracts our clients to the individuals that we are as individuals, collectively as a team, and how we operate as an organization.
So at Bryghtpath, we have five core values. And as we think about how we think and how we act, we think and act according to those core values. We think of them as the cornerstones of the culture that we’ve built here at Bryghtpath and the kind of company that we are and that we aspire to be. These core values were developed collaboratively by our team, working to really define the sort of company that we’ve all always sought to be a part of in our careers. We think of our core values as such an important statement of who we are as an organization that we use them to design and reward our team based upon our values throughout the year.
Our first core value is that we are humbly confident in our resiliency expertise. We know that we are experts in resilience, in the domains of business continuity, crisis management, and crisis communications. We believe as a company that resilience itself is a multifaceted beast. It requires deep expertise and leadership for success. And we believe that resilience is achieved by developing a cross-organizational capability that is championed and governed within an organization. It’s more than just the siloed functions of physical security, business continuity, information security, crisis management, crisis communications, working together. But it is a complex, multifaceted beast, and it has to be championed and driven with expertise in order to be successful in an organization.
Our second core value is that we believe the team and each member of that team are essential. Here at Bryghtpath, we work in a highly collaborative, creative environment as a team. We believe strongly in the concept of teamwork and that each member of our team from the newest, most junior member of the organization all the way up to myself as the owner and CEO, that we’re all essential to our success. We have high standards and high expectations of the organization, our team and of each other. And we all expect to be held accountable to those. We have no room for those who would put their personal agenda or their career ahead of the interests of our team or of our clients. We believe in treating others with respect, our team, our vendors, our partners, and our clients, and we demand the same in return.
Our third core value is that we do good work by providing value that matters. At Bryghtpath, we know that we do important work. We believe that our work matters, and that this work we do makes a difference for our clients as they confront uncertainty and disruption in their operations. We don’t create dusty crisis management, business continuity and crisis communications plans that sit on shelves. We believe in creating specific, defined, simple processes that fit the organizational culture of our clients, not some 300-page monster that no one is ever going to want to use. We know that in the critical moment that our clients face, they will use the strategies that we have helped them create to safeguard their team and protect their business.
Our next core value is that we are insatiably curious. That we believe in an environment of continuous learning. We’re constantly seeking the expansion of our knowledge and we want to work with partners and academics and leaders who are thought leaders in their respective domains, because we want to continue to deepen our expertise. We believe that growing as subject matter experts and leaders is a requirement at Bryghtpath, not just something that we’re encouraged to do. We believe in being on the leading edge of strategic thought in our chosen domains of practice. And as much as possible, we try to work in public. We write and share our thought leadership to improve our field, inspire our current clients, and attract new business.
And lastly, we’re empathetically direct. We believe as an organization in being direct in our words and actions. Our clients expect us to speak candidly from our expertise and experience to give them the best possible advice for their strategic challenges. And we never forget that we must always balance our directness with empathy.
That’s a little bit about our core values at Bryghtpath, and again, these are things that we have developed and built collaboratively as a team. They’re things that we believe in as an organization and that we strive to be every single day. That’s it for this edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. We’ll be back next week with another new episode. Be well.
