Anne Chow: Lead Bigger

Anne Chow was the CEO of AT&T Business and the first woman of color CEO in AT&T’s 140+ year history, responsible for leading a $35B global operating unit of over 35,000 people. She was named to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business twice and today serves on a number of boards, including FranklinCovey, 3M, and CSX. She is the author of Lead Bigger: The Transformative Power of Inclusion.

We all know the importance of values, but it’s often hard to know where to begin when clarifying them with a team. In this conversation, Anne and I explore how to align on values that support a great culture and move towards a vision.

Key Points

• Values and ideologies are distinct. Leading bigger means honoring diverse ideologies while aligning on core values.
• Bigger leaders have the courage to admit and cite situations where they fall short.
• When asking people to craft values, invite them to start by individually considering their personal values.
• When discussing values as a group, highlight both the common agreements and also the outlying ideas.
• Leaders must ultimately decide which values best embody the culture and vision of their organization.
• Bring in different stakeholders to do a gut check on whether the values are legitimate.
• Measure behaviors against values and review and update values and metrics regularly.

Resources Mentioned

• Lead Bigger: The Transformative Power of Inclusion by Anne Chow

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

• How to Create Team Guidelines, with Susan Gerke (episode 192)
• How to Discover What Others Value, with Joe Hart (episode 616)
• How to Prevent a Team From Repeating Mistakes, with Robert “Cujo” Teschner (episode 660)

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