The Dalai Lama said, “Open your arms to change but don’t let go of your values.”

It’s simple really – you keep your DNA alive through your people, particularly your leaders.

Your leaders throughout the organisation from the bottom to the top (the inverted hierarchy again – from the board to the front-line team leaders) have to share that passion for WHY the business exists. Your leaders have to be the role models to ensure that the business’ beliefs and principles are embodied in the actions and decisions that they take. Without this your DNA could be confused, inconsistent, fake and be seen as paying lip service.

So you need to pay attention to your leaders – they should only be in position of leadership if they understand and live your DNA, because deviations are difficult to deal with and can cause significant issues in relation to agility, harmony and the authenticity of your business.

Change will happen in any business, so it important to differentiate between changes to your how and what, and maintaining your WHY. Your WHY should never change.

Leaders also need to ensure that the people they are leading understand the business’ DNA and ensure that they are monitoring and measuring individual’s performance against these expectations and principles; ensuring that deviations are addressed and corrected. Not only that, in an organisation that truly embeds their DNA, peer to peer feedback is essential. Coaching and mentoring play a key part in ensuring that people learn through experiencing how others manage situations or make decisions – these things are not done through training but through observation and application.

So having the right people, with the right passion, who are brave enough to address deviations and who have a focus to mentor, coach and teach others joining your business about ‘your why’ will ensure that you maintain, sustain and ‘keep alive’ your DNA.