Translating an agency’s “core values”
Core values should never become a museum piece honoring
the agency you used to be. They should be a practical
compass for the agency you are becoming.
By Carolyn Smith, APR, CRA, TRA
Do your core values still reflect the agency you are today, or just the agency you were when you wrote them?
You probably spent weeks, sometimes months, debating the words that define who you are. Integrity. Excellence. Service. Accountability. Innovation. Trust. You put them on your website, included them in the employee handbook, displayed them in the office, and introduced them enthusiastically.
And then, new producers joined the agency. Clients expected faster answers and a more advisory experience. Technology and AI changed how people work. The market created new pressures. Your agency evolved, sometimes gradually and sometimes almost overnight.
Yet those carefully chosen core values remain exactly where you left them.
That does not mean they are wrong. Integrity does not come with an expiration date. Doing what you say you will do is as important today as it was 15 years ago. But are your core values still helping your people make the right decisions for the employees and clients you serve today?
Your values have to leave the wall
Ohio-based O’Neill Insurance anchors its culture to a core purpose: to enhance the lives of others. Supporting that purpose are fundamentals such as doing what is best for the client, keeping the human touch alive, anticipating what is around the corner, sharing knowledge, honoring commitments, and making a difference.
So, what happens when that purpose meets real life? Imagine a typical Tuesday morning: An account manager has six urgent tasks competing for attention when a worried client calls with a seventh. That moment is where abstract values leave the website and become real.
Pat O’Neill, president and CEO, says, “Words only matter if people can see them in the way we work. It might be taking extra time with a client, anticipating a problem before it happens, helping a teammate, or stepping up for our community. Culture is built in those everyday moments. To us, that’s when a core purpose becomes more than an aspiration. It becomes a way of working.”
Can your employees translate your core values into what they should actually do?
When the same value means different things
“One of the hardest leadership conversations starts with three words: ‘That’s not us.’ The problem is that most teams do not have enough clarity to explain exactly what ‘us’ means,” says Dustin McClone, president and CEO of McClone Insurance in Wisconsin.
Take a value such as excellence. One employee may believe excellence means moving quickly and getting things done. Another sees that same behavior as careless. One person believes being direct demonstrates accountability. The person on the receiving end thinks it feels disrespectful.
Neither person necessarily rejects the agency’s values. They simply interpret them differently.
McClone believes that you must identify the behaviors underneath your values, then define them, train them, coach them, and make them part of everyday conversations. “Core values tell people who you want to be,” he says. “Defined behaviors give them a way to live it.”
He also believes your thinking should keep evolving. After recently sharing his firm’s approach to culture and high growth with a group of executives in Madison, Wisconsin, he found himself being challenged by their questions and experiences.
“As leaders, we all develop a thesis around how to build a business, lead people, make decisions, and create growth,” McClone says. “But that thesis should not sit on a shelf. It should be tested. It should be challenged. It should be refined by conversations, experiences, and people who see the world differently than we do.”
That is a useful mindset to bring to a year-end review of core values. You do not have to abandon what you believe. You have to be willing to ask whether the way you are putting those beliefs into practice still works.
How do you begin?
Andrew Uber and his team at The Culture Insurance Group in California developed eight core values by looking inward at the kind of organization they wanted to create while also learning from companies known for exceptional cultures and customer experiences.
Uber cautions against simply borrowing another company’s values because they sound good. The ideas you adopt must ring true for your own people, clients, and organization. Every agency has its own history, personality, strengths, and ambitions. Your values should capture that unique combination rather than describe a company you wish you resembled.
For Uber, the value comes from connecting those beliefs to the entire organization. “Connecting the core values of our company to drive the teams, relationships, processes, services, and technology has been the most rewarding aspect that continues to fuel the drive to succeed every single day,” he says.
Can your clients feel your culture?
At Kingsgate Insurance Center in Iowa the connection becomes visible in the client experience. The agency has been recognized for growth and innovation beyond sales, including technology, best practices, community service, and industry leadership. Its guiding principle, “National Knowledge. Local Relationships,” connects expertise with something deeply human.
Ryan Smith, Kingsgate’s president, explains: “The best client experiences often come from things that never make it onto a checklist. Someone notices a change, asks another question, brings in a colleague, or sees something the client may not have considered. We want our people to feel ownership of those moments, because that is often where we have the greatest opportunity to make a difference.”
Processes and technology matter enormously, but they have limits. They cannot anticipate every client conversation, emerging risk, or moment when someone needs to step outside the routine and help.
That is when clients feel your culture rather than read about it.
Your employees need the same evidence. If teamwork is a core value but departments operate in silos, they notice. If innovation is supposedly celebrated but new ideas disappear into bureaucracy, they notice that, too. Your culture is being interpreted every day, whether you intentionally shape it or not.
A different kind of year-end review
November is an ideal time to put your own agency through the same risk management process you encourage your clients to use. Instead of beginning with exposures, begin with your culture. The goal is not to produce a more impressive set of words. It is to make sure your core values still reflect who you are, what your employees need, and the experience you want your clients to have.
Identify what has changed. Look at the past year. Did you add people or technology, change workflows, expand responsibilities, enter new markets, or discover that employees and clients expect something different from you? Your agency is not the same organization it was five years ago, and some of the assumptions behind your values and processes may need another look.
Listen to your people. Ask your team to think about the moments when your agency was at its best this year. What behaviors made them proud? What do clients consistently appreciate? What would they never want the agency to lose as it grows? And what should someone experience when working with you that they might not experience with another agency? Listen for the words and behaviors that come up repeatedly. They are clues to what your team and clients really value.
Look for the gaps. Now compare those answers with the experience that your agency delivers. Where is there friction? Which processes no longer make sense? Is there a disconnect between what you promise and what employees or clients experience? If teamwork is a value but departments still operate in silos, or innovation is encouraged but employees are reluctant to challenge an old process, the problem may not be the value. The behavior supporting it may need to be defined better.
Decide what stays and what needs to change. If your core values are exactly right, keep them, but define what each one looks like in action today. A value may need to be refined or a behavior clarified. A process may be making it unnecessarily difficult for people to live the culture you want. If a value no longer represents who you are or where you are going, have the courage to replace it.
Put the values to work. Make your core values dynamic. Build the behaviors into hiring, onboarding, coaching, performance conversations, client service, recognition, and everyday decisions. Give your team examples of what each value looks like when things are going well and, even more important, when they are not.
Then do what every good risk management process requires: Monitor and revisit. Pay attention to what changes, listen to what your employees and clients are telling you, and adjust before a problem decides for you.
That is not abandoning your roots. It is caring enough about them to keep them relevant.
Core values should never become a museum piece honoring the agency you used to be. They should be a practical compass for the agency you are becoming. When your people know what those values mean and how to live them, your culture becomes stronger, better. And that’s when core values stop being words on a wall and become the way you do business.
The author
Carolyn Smith, APR, CRA, TRA, chief training officer for Beyond Insurance, creates and delivers transformative programs, including the Trusted Risk Advisor certification, BIGN Producer Boot Camp, and Quest for Success, that have positively impacted the lives and careers of countless professionals. These programs help industry professionals build a career that they love and achieve the success they deserve.
