“What did you learn?” I asked. Martin had finished a couple of days speaking with his team about their individual values.

“I gotta tell you,” Martin started, “I have never had this kind of conversation with my team before. I rounded them up the next morning and before we started the shift, I just floated a couple of questions.

• When we work well together, what is it that we do to make that happen?
• What could we do more of, to be more effective as a team?

“All of the things they talked about were heavy with value words. Not only do I have more insight into what makes my team tick, they have a better insight. They have never talked about this stuff before.”

“And, how is this going to help you, as a manager?” I asked.

“Easy,” Martin replied. “Something as simple as everyone showing up on time. No one really understood how important it was to show up at 8:00am. Up until now.”