Ep.199: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Ann Rhoades (@Ann_Rhoades).

I’m thrilled to share my episode today with Ann Rhoades on building values-driven cultures that drive outperformance. Ann was the VP of People at Southwest Airlines with founder Herb Kelleher and was a founding executive as VP of People, and eventually a board member of JetBlue Airways. She has also worked with companies like Doubletree Hotels, P.F. Changs, Restoration Hardware, and countless others through her consulting and research firm, People Ink.

Our discussion focused on building and maintaining values-driven companies from the perspective of the CEO and how they can drive the process forward. One of my favorite takeaways was the importance of tying your values to behaviors, providing real-life examples of how to act in accordance with your values. It’s one thing to announce your core values to your team, but tying them to their everyday roles is crucial. We also talked about how to hire based on values, employee retention, continuous improvement, and how strong values-driven cultures create category leading companies. Please enjoy this fantastic episode with Ann Rhoades.

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Links:

People Ink

Ann on Twitter

OC Tanner 2024 Workforce Study

Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:46) - Why values are so important

(00:14:24) - Ann’s career path and key experiences that led to building a high-performance culture

(00:24:50) - Typical symptoms of a lackluster culture

(00:27:25) - Implementing values

(00:30:22) - The most common obstacles CEOs have in implementing values

(00:32:46) - Having a values-focused hiring process

(00:47:27) - Connecting values to behaviors

(00:50:01) - Tools and systems to measure how an org is living the values

(00:52:50) - Retaining A-players

(00:55:03) - Advice to CEOs looking to build stronger cultures