The Power of Values w/ Andrea Herran

“Our values are the invisible threads that bind us, guide our decisions, and shape how we show up—even when no one’s looking.”

Values are the Hidden Backbone

In this episode of Culture Conversations, I have the pleasure of speaking with Andrea Herran, founder and CEO of Focus HR, who brings a fresh and inspiring perspective on how values—not just stated aspirations—must live in the heart of an organization. Together, we dive deep into what values truly mean, how they manifest, and why they matter at every level of leadership

Tease Key Insights

• Values as North Stars, not slogans: Andrea reframes values beyond adornments on walls—she describes them as guiding behaviors that act as compasses when decisions get murky.

• Living values through leadership: The trick isn’t in defining values—it’s in modeling them. When leaders walk the talk, values are passed along intentionally, not just assumed.

• Cultural alignment unlocks engagement: For values to work, they must be felt—not just known. Andrea shows how cultivating these feelings among employees leads to stronger alignment and deep-rooted trust.

  
  

Why this Matters?

In today’s constantly shifting work environment, values serve as our ballast. When everything else is unstable, they help anchor decisions, shape behaviors, and build resilient cultures. Andrea’s insights remind us: it’s not enough to craft values—a lasting culture is built when those values are embodied through consistent actions.

Listen Now

This episode is a must-listen for leaders who want to harness the power of values in driving real cultural transformation. Think of it as a strategy session in values-based leadership—wrapped in authentic stories and surprising clarity.

Andrea Herran

Founder and CEO

Andrea Herran is the Founder and CEO of Focus HR. After 25 years of helping businesses grow, and expand their teams successfully, she is now renowned for her ability to bring out the excellence in every team. With degrees in business and psychology and vast experience working with companies of all sizes.

Full Episode:

Megan:

Hello and welcome to Culture Conversations, the podcast where we explore the people side of work. I'm your host, Megan Robinson. For years, I've found myself deep in discussions about workplace engagement with industry experts. Now I get to share this wisdom with all leaders, new and experienced, on their journeys to build cultures that maximize potential. We spend so much of our lives at work. Let's make it a place where our teams can grow and succeed. Hi, I'm Megan Robinson, and welcome to Culture Conversations. Today, I'm going to have an amazing conversation with Andrea Haran. She is brilliant at working with organizations of all size, but really taking the lessons that she has from some of those smaller organizations and looking at culture, employee experience, values, and understanding how do we bring that to the forefront? How do we have really intentional cultures How do we make sure that our values are truly aligned? Because that is a deeply personal feeling, deeply personal experience, and making sure that we're bringing that to the business world with intention and clarity. So I want to introduce Andrea. She is the founder and CEO of Focus HR. After 25 years of helping businesses grow and expand their team successfully, she's now renowned for her ability to bring out excellence in every team. And I love that focus on teams. She has degrees in business and psychology and vast experience with working with organizations and companies of all sizes. Welcome, Andrea.

Andrea:

Thank you so much. It's so great to be here.

Megan:

I'm so excited because when we were chatting right before we started recording, having this conversation around values and company culture, I feel is happening a lot, but also not really with a lot of intention or not a lot of clarity. So I'll ask you, How do you help organizations, especially in the work that you're doing, clarify their organizational values?

Andrea:

Thank you so much. Actually, it's quite interesting, because all companies have a culture, whether or not it's the one that you created or your team created. So right now, we work with a lot of companies that are still founder-led, which is a great dynamic. Because as the founder of a company, I'll give you a shortcut. The values of the business are typically your own personal values. Now, yes, not all of your personal values translate into business, but some of them really do, and they do great. I'll cheat here for a second. One of our corporate values is curiosity. Always wanting to learn, always wanting to dig in, ask questions, learn about people, learn about the company. So everybody on my team has to be curious. because that is part of who we are.

Megan:

I love that alignment between that values of the things that you personally value. And it sounds like obviously curiosity is something that that's always served you and something that you really pride. How do you think that aligns with expectations?

Andrea:

Well, you know what, that's what you have to do. Cause it's one thing, you know, yes. Can we make a poster and put words on it and throw it on the wall and say, Hey, here are our values. Here's the thing, the words, because everybody comes from different background. Everybody has different experiences. So everybody's gonna see a word and interpret it differently. So in order to get clarity and consistency across the team is you have to say, what does that look like? And I personally like to have two buckets. One is, how does that look like with the outside world? Our clients, our customers, our patients, depending on your business. And what does that look like internally? Because it may look a little bit different. So for example, curiosity with our clients is asking about their business. How do they, how long they've been doing it? How did they get into it? You know, talk to me. And when we talk with their team, I don't like using the word employees. I always use team talking with the team members of like, why did you decide to work there? You know, in that curiosity internally, that curiosity is I've got a question. Who else can help me and reach out to the team and ask. know because we all have expertise and experiences in different areas so if by chance they run across a new situation it could be like hey has anybody ever worked with um for example living wages you know we don't run across that too often but when we do it's like reach out to the team be curious ask and then If anybody has that experience, they will step forward. Or if they haven't, they'll say, I haven't, but I know there is a speaker or a podcast or something on it that you may be interested in, you know, that kind of stuff.

Megan:

I love defining that curiosity or even we'll say any of those values in those behaviors and actions. And I was just recording an earlier podcast. I'm sure you'll be able to reference in the show notes, but about setting those expectations. And I think when you start identifying what those values are and you start breaking it down into the behaviors that you want to see, you start uncovering some of those hidden expectations you have. You expect your team to reach out to the internal resources. There's other organizations and other teams that's not part of their culture. They may say curiosity because they want them to go out and research and find the answer, but it's that very different interpretation of what that looks like and how that aligns with your expectations for the word is so crucial.

Andrea:

Yeah, it is. That's why I say everybody looks at a word and will come out with a different meaning of what it is. So if you don't define it, you're not going to get that consistency across the team. You know, because while we have values, we also, you know, and we have what those behaviors look like. We also want to respect that the diversity of thoughts within the team, you know, and we're not looking for five, 10, 15 robots that all look at the world the same way. You know, we need that diversity of thought because as you know, in any organization, if you don't have the diversity of thought or the diversity of the way they look at situations, the world, the business, you don't grow. It's very stagnant, you know.

Megan:

Yeah, it's incredibly stagnant. It's funny because I always do an exercise oftentimes when I'm starting with an organization, we're doing some of their early defining leadership work. I'll ask everyone that's in the workshop. Great. Here's one of our core values. What does that look like for you? What does that mean for you? How does that show up in your role? What are the things that the actions and behaviors you can do that align with that value? So they start to make that internal connection to it. Because I'm always a big believer that you have to bring the rest of the team in on that. And I know you are too, right? You can't just put the walls up there, say these are the values. And how you start to get that engagement with them to make that clarity is start shaping that culture. Go ahead.

Andrea:

Yeah, and I was going to say, one of the things that I like doing, especially if the organization has been around a while, Well, as you know, when it's founder led, the way the founder started the business and the way it looks even 10 employees later is different because models change, behaviors change. You learn things from doing things and you've had to adapt. So one of the things I like to do if they're open to it is, okay, this is what you say the values are. You know what? Let's go to your team. And ask them, and I do it in a survey just because the analysis makes it easier, is real simple. Give me four distinct words that you use to describe where you work to your family and friends. I had to change it to four distinct words because I'll get people give me a sentence or they give me the same word four times, you know, so adjust. And what that tells you, it tells you two things. One, what they value about the company, what they see as important, or if it's a negative, what's holding you back. And is it a match? When you see what they come back with, is that actually the culture that you want? Because if you're not intentional, your team will decide what the culture is. Every company has a culture, just may not be the one that you want. Do you have any stories or examples of that disconnect? Yes, let me see if I can remember all the details.

Megan:

I know, I threw that one at you because I'm fascinated. I work with another tool, a coefficient platform, and that's one of, we were doing a meta-analysis, we did some presentations on that. And that's always the biggest takeaway is what the senior executive leadership team sees or how they interpret the culture, the behaviors, everything. They're looking at it through rose colored glasses. And when you start to have that stark difference and you pull the data apart, you say, this is what your frontline employees think. This is what your managers think. It starts to really paint some different pictures.

Andrea:

It really is, because the further away they get from the front line, that's what happens. So yeah, a CPA firm, they just went through big growth. It's a great group of people. Everybody loved their job. Great togetherness. And leadership was like, well, this is what we see as our values. So then we went back to the team and did that exercise. and showed them and I'm like, okay, we're seeing some differences. There was some of it is just, you know, verbiage, you know, it's like, yeah, basically means the same thing, which just means we need to define it better. There was some negativity in there. Part of it, I'll be honest, is the industry because CPA firms, they work crazy hours, you know, basically mid January to April 15th.

Megan:

You know, and then again, for the survey is really big.

Andrea:

Yeah, that we did the survey was actually shortly after the busy season on purpose. Yeah, they wanted to wait longer. No, no, no, no, no. Because we want to know what they're feeling during the stressful time. You know, and then there's another one in September, October. And we saw some negative. And it was like, you know, we spent four hours, four months, sorry, working crazy hours. But it's like they all forgot how light their summer is, how they've got Fridays off. They have, you know, they, there's a lot more. you actually get more time off when your family is off. There's a lot of young families. So they had more time off when their families were off in the summer. So they were missing them. Like, we're not bringing this out enough. We're not showing that, yes, we know the winter months, you're kind of tucked in here, you know, working like crazy, you know, and I'm in the Chicagoland area. So there's a big difference between winter and summer. You know, in the summer months, you get to be out when people actually want to be out, and you're stuck inside when it's minus 30 below, so.

Megan:

And then part of it too is- But it's interesting, it gives you a lot of direction.

Andrea:

How they communicate it.

Megan:

Exactly, how they're celebrating it, how they're recognizing it, how they're reinforcing it. Wow, and that's a really nice smaller shift that they're able to make that doesn't change the culture, it just changes that perspective.

Andrea:

It does. So we looked at communication. So we started doing like an internal, not really newsletter, cause it wasn't, you know, this, like now people can use Canva and do that. We didn't, we didn't do that. This was quite a while ago. And, but we did like a, I think it was biweekly, like education based on the values. So we would have external articles. So it wasn't always somebody internally telling them things. It was, you know, if it was something on time management, we'd pull something up from like Franklin Covey or about the Eisenhower matrix or things like that. If it was about how to speak as a leader here, here's some things from Simon Sinek, you know, things like that. We pull out outside resources to show that, you know, it's not just us. There's people out there that specialize in this and we want you to have their knowledge too.

Megan:

That's wonderful. I love that you're able to bridge those two connections in a really authentic way.

Andrea:

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, obviously we'd read through things, make sure that it fit what we were looking for. And it's not like, just like, Oh, here's some random person saying things. Yeah.

Megan:

So, and I think there's a buzzword. No, I think we've been pretty buzzard like so far. I love the questions, how would you describe it to your family and friends and how you're really making sure that what leadership or that founder, especially, they're bringing those personal values to the party. We're all bringing our personal values, but they're really putting them front and center, are aligning with what that culture is and basing in that reality. Have you ever had to deal with or how would you deal with someone that has maybe some values that doesn't align with the organizations or maybe some of the values that you need to reject or reframe for leaders?

Andrea:

Well, here's the thing. I'm going to look at this from two different points of view. One is in the recruiting process. You need to ask some questions that will help you understand their values to see if they match. Because you can't just say somebody, so. Great talking to you today, Megan. What are your values? It's like asking your team, what motivates you? Yeah, yeah, it doesn't work. And so based on your values, you need to find interview questions that still relate to work to help understand where their values are. Now, just a little caveat there is please listen to the answer in full. And I say that because people hear part of an answer that they like and they stop listening and they don't hear the rest of it. And sometimes the rest of it gives you more information. This is from 35 years of doing this. Now, if the person is already in, because let's say as an organization, you've decided to really define your values, start living them. And this person's already been there a while and they seem fine before, but now that you have this framework that you wanna follow, they're starting to see they don't really fit. Typically, one of two things happens. One, usually happens a lot more often than you would think, that people will be like, I'm out. This is not who I am. This is not what I want to be about. This is not something that matters. Because values are deeply personal. They're not situational. It's not something like, it only matters here, but not here. Values are, it's, you know, these are the hills you fight on, you know, kind of things. So because values are so personal, if somebody doesn't match and you're constantly reinforcing it, talking about it, they will, eight times out of 10, they will bow out. They're like, you know what, this is great. I enjoyed working here. These values don't fit. I'd rather find something that fits, something that's more aligned to my values. They don't say it that neatly, but basically they, you know, that's what it is.

Megan:

Well, there's that kind of secondary push, particularly if you've identified those values and you've done that hard work and you've started to define them with those behaviors. And I will throw expectations on there because you have those values, you've defined the behaviors, you're outlining what you expect from your team. And now you almost have kind of that performance management edge to it where you're able to say, okay, these behaviors aren't aligning with our values. And I'll say, I'm personally working with a client that their leader came to me and said, their behavior does not match the values of this organization.

Andrea:

Exactly. And if they don't bow out themselves and you start having conversations about it, usually the other parts the two of the 10 that end up sticking around, their peers will start pushing them out. Because the frustration. Because if they strongly align and they have somebody who's not, they'll be like, you know, for example, if, of course now I'm drawing a total blank, but let's say one of your values is, like especially in professional services, you know, You need to get back to clients in a certain amount of time. You can't get an email or a phone call and wait a week to return their call. Again, I'm drawing on my own. We respond within four business hours. Doesn't mean we have the answer, but we respond, we acknowledge within four business hours. So if you have something similar, whether it's 24 hours, 48 hours, really wouldn't go past that. just from a customer service perspective. And so if people don't start responding, like within that timeframe and somebody else has to pick it up and take over, they'll be like, Hey, that's your client. Why didn't you get back? Or, Hey, this is your responsibility. Why are they reaching out to me? They're saying that you didn't respond. You know, that pressures will end up taking care of us.

Megan:

Yeah. Wow. Because you work with a lot of founders, and I really kind of honing in on this, because I think there's such an interesting divide, and I'll even say bias that goes into that founders, and I'll say values, but I'm going to even say just perspective, the expectations that they have that sometimes work and sometimes don't work. And I'll say, I remember a client a long time ago, and they were really looking at their values and what's important. And I had to look him dead in the eyes, because on one side, he's telling me, oh, you know, as long as the work gets done, that's what matters. And it was an agency, so we all know agency life gets really crazy. As long as the work's done, right, as long as we've got the work, that's what matters. And then in the next conversation, he would start griping about time cards and how people didn't have full time cards or they were only working 38 hours a week. And I mean, I remember when I was in agency life, my time card was at least 60 hours a week. And so hearing kind of both sides of him talking, I'm like, okay, well, which one do you care about? overworked time cards, is that really your expectation? Or is the expectation that the work gets done and we're okay? Because we can't have it both ways. And I think that was really for him, the value of what hard work looks like, and kind of that expectations of entitlement, or however you want to phrase it from other people, or, oh, they don't know the meaning of hard work, are all starting to come out. I love all of your, right, I'm sure you've heard all of these from people before, all of the complaints.

Andrea:

Many times over.

Megan:

So how does that align or how does that work its way into its values?

Andrea:

It is contradictory, you know, and first of all, I would say, you know, especially like with an agency, because it gets contradictory because their business model traditionally, I'm sure there's some that aren't as traditional, is based on billable hours. This goes for agencies, this is for CPAs, attorneys, you know, those kinds of professions. So they say, yeah, as long as the work gets done, but then they see a drop in billable hours. And my response to them is, be honest with yourself as to what is important. It's be honest. Your focus is on billable hours. Right? And so then I convert it from billable hours to utilization rate. How billable are they? Are they 80%, 90% billable? Things like that. It's like, if that's what's important, let's talk about that. Let's not talk about as long as the work gets done. Maybe which or, so let's talk about that. It's like, be honest. It's OK. There's a place for everybody to work and for all kinds of people. Some people are not going to like the fact that there's pressure or there's an emphasis on billable hours. And other people will be like, yeah, it makes sense to me, whatever. It's OK. But you have to be clear. Or I would ask them to say, when you say as long as the work gets done, are you referring to the fact that they don't have to be at their desk from 9 to 5, and you don't care if they do it at 3 o'clock in the morning, 11 o'clock at night? Are you referring to it doesn't matter what time of the day they used to do it. Or, you know, because sometimes people are like, I don't care when they do the work, as long as they, they have the billable hours, the work gets done. You know, because there's people that, you know, one of the things we learned from the pandemic is work life balance. And that has a different definition per person. Everybody has their own definition of that. So Some people will be like, you know what? I have learned that I am really on top of things, you know, from like, I don't know, 4 a.m. to 11 a.m. You know, they can crank it out in the morning and that's great. Talk to them after lunch, the food coma has set in and their brain is mush. Others are like, nope, I'm a night owl. I will do it at night. I prefer to do my heavy thinking, strategic type work after the kids go to bed. So does he mean it doesn't matter when the work gets done, as long as it gets done? Is he referring to hours? What hours of the day they utilize to do the work compared to actual billable hours? So I know I'm cutting a, like a, walking a fine line there, but I find that people will say one thing when they mean something else. So it's more like, What do you mean by that? You know, are you referring to the billable hours or are you talking about the time during the day that they do it, for example? You know, like when people say, oh, we lack communication. That's huge. Communication field is like this big within a business. So what communication are, you know, I always go back with, okay, do you mind if we try to narrow this down a little bit? I go, it's hard for me to figure out how to fix communication. So can we narrow it down? What communication do you feel is lacking? You know, give me some examples because that I can work with.

Megan:

I love that focus. I think, and that's really the theme from this conversation for me is, is the more clarity that you get with that, the more specificity with it. And especially for that owner, that founder, that leader that has that has very much built this business, getting clear with what those values are, making sure that those expectations, those behaviors are aligning to it. And again, that clarity, that transparency, especially if it feels contradictory or you're finding that you're having that tension with it is being honest. And I echo that with you as well as just being honest with it because you cannot change your values easily. You have to make sure they align. You have to make sure that everyone's able to own and internalize them. But if you were going to have those sticking points, you had better be clear about that from the beginning, all the way from the hiring process through implementation.

Andrea:

Oh, absolutely. And even involved in, I'm not a big fan of annual reviews. I like things more frequently. I call them check-ins. We work with some companies that run on EOS. So part of their 555, I think it's called. One of the first questions, it's like, how have you demonstrated your values? How have you demonstrated the corporate values in your work? Where do you feel you're strong? Which value do you think you need some more support on?

Megan:

Love that. Love that question. We can get that personal review, as well as a filter for everyone to use that. Yeah. Well, this has been such a wonderful conversation, Andrea. What are some last tips or ideas or words of wisdom that you want to share when it comes to this?

Andrea:

I think the biggest thing, and we've been saying it all along, is define it. Go beyond the word. You know, people look at values as one word. Add some sentences. What does that look like in the behaviors that you express externally to clients or internally to each other? When you define the behaviors, That's where the magic happens. The word isn't enough. You have to explain what it means.

Megan:

I could not repeat that more. That's beautifully, beautifully said and very succinct. Thank you. I could repeat it more. I won't for everyone's sake. But thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and expertise. And if you are listening to this and you're like, man, Andrea really knows her stuff. Especially if you're that founder, that business owner, especially those smaller organizations where it's so much is riding on your back, where you are that face of the business, where you are starting to really build out those cultures with intention and impact. I do recommend that you reach out to Andrea and her team to get that support, to have someone that's going to push you further, help clarify that thinking. Because I guarantee if you think it's clear, You may think that you were absolutely crystal clear. It is muddy. It is. And you're laughing because you've seen it all. Like, no, we already said that. We don't need to do that again. You're like, I have no idea what this means. And everyone's afraid to tell you. So please do use those resources. Get that outside perspective. Make sure that you have someone that can really help you clarify that thinking, really clarify that communication, however you define communication for you and your team. Thank you for your time today, Andrea. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Culture Conversations. I'm your host, Megan Robinson, founder of eLeader Experience, a professional leadership development company. Today, we shared actionable ideas to navigate the evolving workplace landscape, compete for talent, and build cultures that maximize potential. If you're looking to learn more about how to support your organization's leaders, you can learn more about our work at eLeaderExperience.com. Now get out there and contribute positively to your organization's culture with your own conversations.