by Bob Adams, President
Our senior management group recently approved modifications to our Mission Statement and our statement of Core Values. These in no way indicate a substantive change in either. Rather, it is the next stage in our evolution, our journey, as we maintain a process of self-examination in our quest to better understand who we are, and why we do what we do.
This quest is strongly influenced by the teachings of Simon Sinek in his book “Start With Why”. Sinek urges businesses and people to understand why they exist or why they do the job they do. He calls his principle “the Golden Circle,” and describes its alignment with the human brain structure, where beliefs (the why, the center of the circle) correspond to the core limbic brain that controls decision making.
Our edited expression of our mission, the why we exist, is
To engineer better lives through automation services
The business exists on a foundation of engineering, and we want our engineers to have a passion for what they do, with the recognition that lives are made better by what we do. That may involve control systems for providing clean water, automating machines making carpet for people’s homes, or managing pipelines supporting our country’s energy goals.
Core Values
Supporting that statement of purpose are our core values:
- Humble: The recognition that we always have room for improvement, to be better. Better at designing systems. Better at implementing projects. Better at running our business. Better at serving our customers.
- Driven: The desire to do all we can to improve in every area of our business. Driven to bring well-designed projects in on schedule and budget. Driven to have employees who enjoy coming to work. Driven to have customers who choose us first.
- Conscientious: A belief in doing what is right or principled. Doing our work well and thoroughly. Being careful, painstaking, meticulous, and scrupulous.
These have always been what we recognized as characteristics of our company. We now understand that characteristics are displays of core values and have put that understanding into words.
As Senek says, we always find it easy to come up with the what and the how, due to the way our brains function. It takes a lot more work to get to the real why.
For at least 20 years, we have been refining our mission statement. Trimming it to remove fluff and be more concise. Always trying to find the true essence of our purpose and the right words to express it. Is it as good as it can be? The humble in me says no. But we know that any future refinements will remain focused on the why of what we do.