What Makes Gray & Fick Unique

By: Adam Palmer

The team at Gray & Fick has been operating in much the same way for decades. As an outsider looking in, I knew that this group was known for quality, competency, and practicality. I knew how loyal the core clientele was, but it wasn’t until I joined this group that I realized that the culture is what makes Gray & Fick truly remarkable.

I immediately found myself looking to define what it was that I was experiencing. What became obvious was that Bill Fick’s strong leadership and values were engrained in the work and the way the group interacted. Wanting to preserve this dynamic, it became obvious that we needed to extract the unique underlying values that this group shared. This was important, not just for preservation, but also to evaluate future candidates who would continue this tradition.

Now armed with a mission, our leadership group set out to draw to the forefront the specific values that make up our culture. Having the insight from our book club and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we knew that leadership would not be able to adequately define these values without input from all levels of our organization. We chose to assemble the entire company and asked for individual submissions of core values. An important distinction was that we requested submission that embodied our current culture while dismissing generic ideals that just make any group good.

After a couple of weeks our entire team re-assembled and dissected the nearly forty different phrases that were submitted. We needed to go through this list honestly and respectfully. We needed to ensure everyone was heard and we didn’t miss critical aspects of our culture. Immediately our group knew what we had done was special. The energy in the room following that nearly 2 ½ hour meeting carried over into the next morning where members of the team continued to comment on the topics and express their enthusiasm for the process.

The core values meeting identified eight major themes that our group agreed embodies our culture and the way we do business. We have taken those themes and presented them in no specific order in the following passages:

As a group we are more than these eight passages, but we felt that these eight values combined embody what makes us unique as a group. As we continue to service our industry, we will refine and re-define what it means to be a member of our team, but for now these eight pillars are what makes us Gray & Fick.