I am honored to be able to use my “soapbox” to try to convince business leaders that building a culture of employee engagement is not only the right thing to do, but is good for business.

Unfortunately, my views are still a minority view in business today. Most leaders still believe in command and control philosophies and focus on profit before people.

To be fair, leaders have the right to ask about the ROI on culture. To date, there is simply not enough data to support the connection between running a values-based business and financial results.

We’re going to change that.

Our Small Giants Community has partnered with the Center For Values Driven Leadership at Benedictine University to commission the Return On Values (ROV) research project. It is a comprehensive academic-led study of thousands of businesses, and deep dive case studies of 40 companies in an attempt to validate the connection between culture and profit. Output will include not only the data, but new tools and resources to help leaders implement these practices in their companies.

Please read about the project here and please contact me if you are interested in being involved with this important endeavor.