Core Values
"Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us.
Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us." Hebrews 12:1
Core values - "the guiding principles that dictate behavior and action"
Several years ago my employer implemented a job performance evaluation program that centered on the company's redefined core values. 50% of every employee's annual performance evaluation is based on adherence to the organization's four core values:
Own it - Be accountable, take action and make it happen
Do right - Follow through, work with principles and do no harm
Work together - Think win-win, build consensus and play your role on the team
Always care- Listen with empathy, be compassionate and support this in need
Those four phrases are found woven throughout our workplace. Large signs strategically located throughout the broad campus remind, not just employees, but our patients and visitors what foundational principles are essential to our mission. Our core values also appear on patient information brochures, institutional web sites, employee training material, and every employee annual performance appraisal. In other words, our core values are defined, rehearsed, and remembered until they are literally woven throughout our organization's culture.
My Big Oak Ranch Timbers quarterly magazine came the other day. Inside the front cover was a note from Brodie Croyle, Executive Director for the Big Oak Boys' and Girls' Ranches. In his note, Brodie wrote the following words:
"At the beginning of this year, all of us at Big Oak Ranch set goals. We as a staff have inspirational words to cling to throughout the year, something that helps us remain focused... Our four-part theme for this year is:
Love
Forgive
Do Right
Know God is in control
"As simple as those words might sound, if we can get these four things right, then we are prepared to fulfill our ultimate purpose...If we love, forgive, do right, and know God is in control and we actively make these priorities in our lives, it allows us to run the race set before us in purity, in strength and fully in our purpose."
Big Oak Ranch's purpose, of course, is to provide a Christian home for children needing a chance. That's what they offer- a chance. To find a normal life. To find God's love. To find that one is much more than his or her circumstances. The Ranch takes in children between the ages of six and eighteen from all over the United States who are orphaned, abused or neglected. This year's core values- love, forgive, do right, and know that God is in control- are the Ranch's way to maintain a fixed focus and faithful finish for providing many children a chance at a Christian home.
All of us have core values, those guiding principles that dictate our behavior and action. If someone asked you to define yours, what would you say? The unknown author of Hebrews laid out his core values in Hebrews 12:1-2: a fixed focus, a firm stand and a faithful finish. May each of us do the same.
Amen and Amen