Why Communication is “Fundamental!”

We’ve recently implemented an intra-team program to reinforce our company’s four core values : Communication, Commitment to Excellence, Service, and Relationships.

The concept came from the book Fundamentally Different by David Friedman and has helped us break down each value into action statements tied to a specific behavior. The behaviors are called “Fundamentals.” For example, our core value “Commitment to Excellence” entails the Fundamentals “don’t cut corners” and “practice fanatical attention to detail.”

Each week, one team member is assigned a Fundamental associated with our core values and tasked with instilling it across our organization. They share what the Fundamental means to them, how it impacts their work and life, and ways team members can embrace and hone the Fundamental. Once we’ve exhausted the Fundamentals for a core value, we move on to the next value and its Fundamentals.

We incorporate the weekly Fundamentals into our correspondence, our meetings, and our private Facebook group. You may have seen my social media posts featuring a Fundamental weekly. On Sundays, the person who owns the featured Fundamental kicks off the week with an email to the team to get them thinking about how to incorporate it into their daily routine. We just finished the second round of addressing the four Fundamentals related to our…