CORE VALUES
“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.”
– Roy E. Disney
WHAT ARE CORE VALUES?
Core Values are those an organization holds as foundational in team members’ beliefs, behavior, and culture. Here are the Core Values of two very different high-performing organizations.
• Marines’ Core Values. Honor, Courage, and Commitment
• Zappos. As we grow as a company, it has become more and more important to explicitly define the core values from which we develop our culture, our brand, and our business strategies. These are the ten core values that we live by:
1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble
EXAMPLE OF CORE CORPORATE VALUES
Below are the core values I helped create at OpenMethods. The values are simple and authentic ideas. Notice how the mission is at the top with the context of what values are used for “our values ground us in our decisions, behavior, and relationships with each other, our customers and partners.” The six values support the realization of the mission and are all used in making better decisions, inspiring people to do the right thing, and building trust in relationships. Once the values are solidified, the challenge is making them a reality through reinforcing them throughout the employee journey, meetings, interactions, mentorship, internal and external marketing, and more.
Below is a list of potential core values for an organization. Values fall into a few different categories including personal, interaction/relationships, business-oriented, customer, and external. Of course, the list is just a start to get you thinking, as there are hundreds of more potential values and the trick is to make them pithy, inspiring, mission-oriented, and culturally aligned.
WHY ARE CORE VALUES IMPORTANT?
Core Values can serve as a strong foundation for an organization’s culture. And, a great culture, if nurtured correctly, can create an incredible environment for team members to flourish. On the other hand, a bad culture can be the downfall of organizations by demotivating team members and creating general discontent. Too often, Core Values are an afterthought, created by groupthink, or are so generic (Integrity, Respect, Professional, etc.), that they really don’t have the teeth to be the foundation of the culture you need to succeed at your Mission. You not only need to get the Core Values right, but you also need to ensure the leadership team lives the Core Values. If the leadership team does not believe or conduct themselves by the Core Values, this double standard is one of the quickest ways to create cynicism, apathy, and tank morale in an organization.
HOW DO YOU CREATE AND LIVE BY CORE VALUES?
A strong set of core values helps shape an organization. Core values should be used as a guide in hiring, onboarding, conduct, team-building initiatives, evaluations, and decision-making. Here are the best practices for creating and living core values:
• Be authentic. It is so easy to create really bad core values. Don’t do it. Really think through what makes your team or organization special. What values are important as you think through the lens of your mission? Don’t use corporate speak in your core values, be authentic, and use the voice of the organization that people can embrace and rally around.
• What does the organization need to be world-class at? Look back at the core values of the Marines and Zappos. The Marines need soldiers with the most honor, courage, and commitment in the world. Zappos is world-class in service, which is its 1st core value. What does your organization need to be world-class at? Whatever it is, you need to weave it into your Core Values.
• Tap into the voice of the employee. Whenever you are creating the core values for a group of people, you should include them in creative problem solving. Whether it is issuing a survey, brainstorming, or having them vote on the top 3 or 5 core values, there are a lot of ways to ensure the Voice of the Team Members is heard loud and clear.
• Focus on 3-5 core values. While Zappos’ Value Statement has ten core values, at least in the beginning, keep your Value Statement to 3 to 6 core values. Just like a Mission Statement, you want high recall rates on your core values; otherwise, they won’t stick as the foundation of your culture.
• Embed them into the organizational strategies. Below is a great example of deeply embedding the core values into the employee journey.
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CORE CORPORATE VALUES POWERPOINT TEMPLATE
To get you and your team started on brainstorming, developing, and deciding on your core corporate values you can download the free values PowerPoint template. As you brainstorm values, make sure you use some sort of scoring to rank potential values. I find evaluating ideas through the lens of 1. Supports Mission, 2. Aligns Culturally, and 3. Memorable & Inspiring are helpful in prioritizing potential values and elevating the brainstorming.
The free download includes the following two slides.
I hope you've gotten some new ideas and perspectives from Stratechi.com. If you want some one-on-one support from me, Joe Newsum, set up some time here. I'm a McKinsey alum who has also been the COO of the 9th fastest growing U.S. company, managed $120 million marketing budgets, led the transformation of 20,000 employees, successfully started two companies from scratch, and amassed a load of experience over my 25-year career. I really enjoy coaching clients and they get a ton of value too. You can see some of their testimonials here. I have deep experience with this topic, strategic planning, career development, scaling up, workshops, leadership, presentation development & delivery, ramping up new roles, and much more. Read my take on developing a strategy. Click here to learn more about me or book some time.
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