Episode 4: Core Behaviors vs. Core Values

This episode of The Huge Insider Podcast centers on hiring and the power of establishing “core behaviors” to shape company culture. This segment from Mike Dahlke (who owns or invests in 11 blue-collar businesses), emphasizes using “core behaviors” (akin to core values) to hire, fire, and regularly coach employees. By identifying the best traits of your top performers—and inverting the worst traits of your underperformers—you create a concise framework for consistent, behavior-focused hiring and feedback. This core-behavior method is straightforward, repeatable, and ensures everyone on the team embodies a clear, cultural standard.

 

Show Notes

• Mentioned in the Episode:

  • Core Behaviors (or Core Values)
  • Charlie Munger’s “inversion” concep

• Resources:

  • The Huge Insider newsletter signup
  • The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide
  • The Foundations platform trial offer
  • The Huge Mastermind info page
  • Facebook
  • Call-in line to share wins or lessons: 804-600-HUGE (4843)

Transcript

Sid Graef:
Welcome back to The Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it's Sid Graef here. If you caught our first few episodes, you already know this is a brand new show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. And if that's you, you're definitely in the right place. If you're already over a million in revenue, you're going to get even more out of the show.

So here's the deal. This is not your typical podcast. It's not an interview show. It's not an expert-driven show. Instead, we've gathered seven- and eight-figure business owners, people running companies that are doing anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year and beyond, and we're bringing you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month.

And these are real owners. These are people that are actually running businesses. They're quietly building empires behind the scenes. They're not the people that you would see on social media looking for attention. They're in business to run a business and making things happen.

So this month, it's March. We're diving deep into our main subject, and that is hiring. Today, you're going to hear from Mike Dahlke. Mike owns or is invested in 11 blue-collar businesses, and they all use this framework as the foundation for all of their hiring. Let's get into it. Let's hear from Mike.

Mike Dahlke:
Hey, this is Mike Dahlke from Nashville, Tennessee. We own and operate and control 11 different businesses, mostly in the blue-collar trade space and home services space, and I'm sending a message about core behaviors or core values.

So it's coming up to hiring season. We're getting real close to where we're going to have to really ramp up, especially in our northern climates where the snow's starting to melt, and we're going to be really, really focused on hiring. So we have core behaviors standardized across all of our organization. So most people would know these as core values. We've changed the wording just a little bit, but most people use their core values to hire and fire.

Most people use them to discuss that in an all-hands-on meeting. What we do is a little bit different. We use our core behaviors at every single coaching meeting. So if you're set up on a review system where we're going to review the team member every 30 days or every 90 days, we're going to go through those core behaviors every time.

Now, this is one of the reasons why we call it core behaviors and not core values. It's really hard to tell somebody in a review, “Your values aren't good,” or “You need to improve your values,” or “Your values aren't aligned with ours.” It's a lot easier to say, in a review, “This is how you're behaving in a way that's going to help us accomplish our mission and goals, and this is what you can do better.”

So our core behaviors are really an outline of how you have to behave when you are a part of our organization. It doesn't mean you can't value integrity or have other values that are different than ours, but you have to behave this way in our organization. And that makes it a really, really easy hiring conversation, coaching conversation, firing conversation.

So, how, if you do not have core behaviors or core values, the easiest way to come up with them is to take the top five employees that have ever worked for you or that you've worked with. If you're new to business and you're just getting started, think about a job that you had where you had excellent employees that worked with you, excellent team members.

How did they behave that was so attractive to you or that you really, really enjoyed? Maybe they were ultimately responsible. Maybe they owned up to their mistakes. Maybe they were humble, hardworking, hungry, smart. What are the things that were consistent between those five? And those are things that are hopefully consistent in you as well, so that you can put them on your list of core behaviors.

The other side of that is to invert it. So Charlie Munger, who was Warren Buffett's partner, one of the wealthiest men in the country, he had a famous line that said, “All I want to know is where I'm going to die, because if I know where I'm going to die, I'm never going to go there, and then I'll never die.”

And so he used that philosophy of always inverting, looking at the negatives and saying, “Okay, let's just go the exact opposite of that.” So if we take a look at those inversions and say, “Okay, well, what about the five worst employees I've ever had, or the worst members, or the worst that I've ever been with? What were those core behaviors, and what would be the opposite positive of that?”

So maybe they were dishonest, so that would be honest. Maybe it was that they were lazy, so that would be hardworking. So take the five that are just awesome and the five that were terrible and use that to come up with your core behaviors, your core values, if you haven't had them.

Once you've got them, you can hire them and bring it up in the—you should hire people and bring it up in the hiring process: “This is how we behave,” or “This is our core values, and if you want to work for us, this is what our expectations are.”

And then my very, very strong encouragement for everybody is to have one of the questions that you think through before every review: How is this team member behaving in a way that's going to help us accomplish our mission and value our mission and vision this year? How can they do better? So giving very consistent, real feedback on what they're doing well and what they can do better is awesome.

So again, for core values, core behaviors, the two most important things are: get them—get them dialed in with the top five and the worst five. Secondly, use them when you're doing your hiring this spring so that you get the right people up front, and they know if they're not going to value or behave the way—that they're just not going to get what they need, or they're not going to be able to work for you in a positive way.

And then lastly, bring it up in every review: “How are they behaving in a way that's consistent with these behaviors and want to make you better?” Hope that's helpful. Enjoy your spring. Talk to you soon.

Sid Graef:
Okay, that's a wrap for Episode 4. What did you learn about core behaviors? More importantly, what are you going to do with that information? So Mike's strategy is simple, but don't let that fool you. It is powerful. Why? Because at the foundation of every successful business is one core truth: Culture is king, and culture is predicated by core behaviors. That's how you can define it.

So your next step is to take some action. Everything we covered in today's show is in the show notes, but most importantly, you can download the free action guide that goes with today's episode. We put together a three-page action guide to help you execute this week's strategy. Grab it at thehugeinsider.com.

And here are a few more ways that you can continue to grow and level up your business. This podcast is just one way that we help you grow. Next, we have our free weekly newsletter—weekly insights that come straight to your inbox, also cleverly named The Huge Insider. You get that, you can sign up for it at thehugeinsider.com.

We have a Facebook group—Facebook group where you can ask questions. We have a monthly Q&A. It's a pretty engaged group. And you find that at thehugeinsider.com. We have a mastermind. We call it The Huge Mastermind. Now, this is for people like—and maybe this is you—if you're pushing a million in revenue or you're over a million in revenue, you've got five or more employees.

This is the fast track to a freedom business. The Freedom Operating System is a system that allows your business to run and grow without you, and that gives you more freedom of money and freedom of time. So all of those resources—and The Annual Convention, The Huge Convention—that's the ultimate event for home service business owners. This year, it's going to be in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20 through 22.

All of this is available at thehugeinsider.com. Last thing before we go, we'd really love to feature you on our podcast. If you've had a big win in business, or more directly, if you've taken a concept from one of these episodes and applied it and gotten a result, we'd love to hear about it. If you've had a painful lesson or, like, a game-changing failure that ended up helping you grow into a better businessperson, we want to hear about that.

We really want to hear about it. We set up a special phone number for you—it's 804-600-HUGE. That's 804-600-HUGE (4843). Call and leave us a message. Tell us about your win or your loss or your growth, and we might just feature your story on an upcoming episode.

That's it for this week. Don't just listen—take action. I'm Sid Graef, and this is The Huge Insider Podcast. We'll see you next time.