Dealing with Conflicting Values in Business

There are a handfull of values that I aspire to live my life by. Service, freedom, family, health, and environment. If I keep these values front of mind when making decisions I believe I will live a fulfilling life. However, there are often times when I have no choice but to sacrifice one value for another. In this blog post I want to explore a decision I made recently that goes against my value of environmental conservation, but ultimately I still believe it was the right decision.

My passion for environmental conservation was developped over many years of watching the destruction mankind in capable of. I also had many debates with my sister who works in wildlife conservation. Her dedication inspired me to also move my business in that direction. I really built my business on this value. Focusing on diverse garden designs full of native plants is what helped distinguish me from existing companies who had more reach and more resources than me. It also gave me a long list of topics to write about and create content for my website. This ultimately led me to land my first clients and I feel like I have a responsibility to uphold these values that have served me so well.

Service is another fundamental value in my life and in my business. When it comes down to it, every job I do is in some way serving my clients. I aspire to serve my clients to the highest standard. There aren’t many things that make me feel as good as a happy client after a job well done. In recent years, this value has begun to overshaddow my value of environmental conservation. For example, I have started to accept lawncare clients where I would’ve turned them away in the past. I did this because I saw that my clients had a need for this service, and while it isn’t the most restorative service I offer, I still believe I can provide the service in a more sustainable way than the other big landscaping companies. So I started buying battery powered lawn equipment. I bought a mower, a trimmer, a leaf blower, and ever a snow blower – all battery powered. That battery powered snow blower was the source of my next dilema.

If you are a homeowner looking for a snow blower, I highly recommend the EGO brand battery powered snow blower. They work great, easy to use, and they aren’t so loud and smelly like gas powered blowers. However, if you run a snow removal service like I do, it may not be sufficient. Even with two sets of batteries, I kept running into the problem that my batteries would die halfway through my route. Then we would be forced to finish the remaining properties by hand. Backbreaking work. I was turning away new clients because we could barely handle the clients we had. The quality of service suffered, and so did my sleep schedule. So in the name of service (and my mental health) I caved and bought a gas powered blower. Now we can help more people who need snow removal services and provide a higher quality of service. I no longer have the range anxiety that I had with my battery powered blower. An added bonus of this purchase is that I was able to gift my parents my battery powered blower which will hopefully save my dad’s back some pain. I believe that this compromise was ultimately the right decision for my business and for my clients.

I continue to learn that the world is not black and white. It isn’t so easy to uphold every one of my values in every situation. Sometimes my values conflict with one another. Sometimes I need to make compromises. This wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I think it was the right decision. What would you have done in my situation? When have you had to compromise your values? Let’s talk about it in the comment section below.

Thanks for reading!

Scott Carroll

Carroll Property Services