Why Core Values Matter
You’ve probably heard of them before. Whether it be with the organization you work with, or perhaps you even have core values that govern your own life. A select list of words that withhold the fundamental beliefs of an organization or individual. But do they really matter? Does having a set of core values really make a difference? The short and probably obvious answer to those questions is yes. But why?
In day to day life, it’s easier to become distracted by the thousands of things that require our attention. Within an organization, it may come in the form of shiny new technology, business opportunities, or just the daily grind that we get lost in. In your personal life, you may have a family to look after, various goals you’d like to accomplish and are probably just trying to balance everything out.
Core values help us to stay focused. However, they are different from a five-year plan or mission statement. Long-term plans and mission statements can be malleable and often change over time. Core values are unwavering, they are like a compass in the open sea. Your core values guide and direct you no matter where you currently are if you stick with them.
Hunt Street Station’s Core Values
Our core values are no different. We spent a lot of time considering what they should be, and they have helped us achieve a lot of success in a short amount of time. We challenge each other to maintain and uphold these values, and these values guide our plans as we move forward. You can see them below:
Hospitable:
Our idea behind this was simple. Provide the best hospitality we can for a coworking space. We emphasized that Southern, or European style of care when we thought through this. Ultimately, we just want our members to feel at home. We want to be committed to going above and beyond our member’s needs and often providing things before they even know they need them.
Innovation:
Nowadays, it seems this has become a part of every organization’s culture. As so many ideas surface, to be innovative often means the difference between success and failure. However, for us, this looks different then what a company like Apple considers innovation. We wanted to approach coworking in a refreshing way, with a focus on providing high-quality service. We emphasized creative workspaces that are flourishing with art and plant life to help each of our members.
While many spaces attempt to provide the latest and greatest technology, our hope is to get back to the basics and inspire our members through a grassroots type of approach. We hope that by providing different types of spaces and opportunities, we can inspire innovation within our members. So far, we have seen a different number of tech companies and non-profits achieve varying degrees of success within our space.
Community Focused:
This one is probably the pinnacle of all our core values. As Detroit continues to change, we recognize that we have a unique opportunity to provide resources to the community. For us, this is both internally and externally. Internally, we emphasize facilitating relationships between members, making sure everyone is treated fairly, and emphasizing service. We want the right tenants in the building who are committed to building up the neighborhood in which we reside.
Externally, this means a lot of focused commitment to the community. We volunteer a lot and donate when we can. Hunt Street Station was built to be a beacon to the neighborhood. However, since it was a police station in a primarily black community, it held a lot of negative emotion within the community. Now, we have an opportunity to truly be that beacon. To provide opportunities to small business owners, entrepreneurs, and inspiring artists within the community. We work with a number of non-profits in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood and hope to continue to do this as we move forward.
Member Success:
We are only as successful as our members. That’s the approach we take to this core value. We help our members build better businesses through teaching, learning sessions, and genuinely caring. As each member signs up with us we ask questions on how we can help them succeed, and take great pride in doing so.
It’s easy to just take an individuals money and keep the relationship financially based. We strive to go beyond that. We want to be affordable and accessible to as many people as we can. Truthfully, there are times we fail at this, and there are times we are unable to help an individual. However, we learn from these moments and continue to focus on the success of each of our members.
Conclusion
As a quick recap, our core values are Hospitable, Innovation, Community Focused, and Member Success. Think about the core values of your organization, or even personal life, and how you measure up to them. When your core values are aligned properly, it becomes much harder to fail.
Thanks for reading, follow us on Instagram and Facebook to keep up with our day-to-day! Also, if you have any questions feel free to email our community manager Alex, at alex@huntstreetstation.com
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