CORE VALUES

“Should I hire this person?” “How do I really know if this is the right candidate?” “Did I make the best choice for our team?”

We run our business on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), which has as one of its most important foundational tools the identification and use of Core Values. We use Core Values to guide our decisions around vendors, partners, and customers, and around hiring, managing, and terminating employees. We have integrated EOS Core Values into our hiring practices and work hard to understand if a candidate has those values early on.

In a recent interview, I wanted to determine if the candidate valued humility, one of our Core Values. I don’t normally go about it this way, but decided to ask him directly—

Me: Can you define the word “humble” for me?

Candidate: [Long pause] You mean like what the dictionary says?

Me: No, how would you would define it?

Candidate: [Another long pause] Being humble means that you may know all the answers but are not arrogant or cocky about it.

Me: is it possible that the word “humble” might imply that we do not know all the answers?

Candidate: But what if you do know all the answers?

—The interview was pretty much over at that point.

This candidate happened to be incredibly qualified for the job—in other words, this candidate would “GWC” their seat (Get it, Want it, have the Capacity to do it), but the inability of this candidate to really understand humility and demonstrate it immediately disqualified the candidate for consideration.

Candidates sometimes express surprise that I, as the company owner, am doing the first interview, wondering why I would invest my time to do so. We believe that no qualification, including skill sets, expertise, experience, and education, can compensate for a lack of Core Values; that the latter will drive an employee’s success or failure at Centra Homes. Therefore, I always do the first and the last interviews, really looking for Core Values.

By focusing on them, we have built a united team that accomplishes anything we need to in order to achieve our long-range strategy and short-term objectives. Core Values are not just platitudes written on a plaque in our office space. They guide us, unite us, and strengthen us.