Core Values: Your Company's True North

"Your core values are a timeless set of guiding principles for your company… Once clear, Core Values help you hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize your people to build a thriving culture." Mark O'Donnell, CEO of EOS Worldwide

Hi there??, thanks for dropping by. I learned a ton scaling Hunt A Killer to $205M and wanted to document and share those lessons here. We talk about business management (EOS!), talent optimization, and workplace culture. Click the “subscribe” button above to receive notifications when new articles drop.

Every action of an organization starts with its Core Values.?

Core Values define the company culture, shape collaboration, and guide decision-making. They are the foundation of any EOS-run company, ensuring alignment, accountability, and consistency across all levels of the business.?

In other words, Core Values help with your company’s rhythm and allow team members to align on actions.

It’s a simple concept… right??

Well, simple in theory, at least.

Core Values appear deceptively simple, leading many founders to mistake them for abstract concepts.?

Enron’s company values of Integrity, Communication, Respect, and Excellence, were proudly painted on walls, training materials, and their annual reports. Unfortunately, that’s the extent to which they were used. From fraudulent accounting at a massive scale to silencing employees who spoke up, Enron went against its Core Value of Integrity at every opportunity.?

The story of the largest bankruptcy in American corporate history serves as a powerful reminder that Core Values are futile if they aren’t embraced in every action and decision made by the organization.?

And once a company starts to take its Core Values lightly, it’s only a matter of time before it outright collapses under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

Core Values are a practical tool essential for guiding teammates’ actions across various business functions and they get very complicated when it’s time to apply them.

To help you navigate this key part of EOS implementation, I've interviewed Certified EOS Implementers from all over the country, to get their insights and actionable advice on how to deal with the glue that holds it all together.?

This is your practical guide for identifying, applying, and modifying Core Values.

How to Identify Your Core Values

The first step to defining your Core Values is understanding that they already exist within your organization, in the background, amidst all the success, failures, and chaos.?

Many founders make the mistake of trying to invent Core Values instead of discovering them. This happens so often during the first step of Vision/Traction Organizer when they’re first introduced to the book Traction.

Founders write down so many options (sometimes making stuff out of thin air) and are unable to narrow it down to the most important. Analysis paralysis is very real.

“When I take a look at a Vision/Traction Organizer, I can tell you with a high level of confidence whether or not this company is self-implementing or not, because there's just too much in it.”?- Cheri Kuhn , Certified EOS Implementer

Instead, use this proven framework to rediscover the values that already exist within your organization.

1. Identify the Organization’s Role Models

Every organization has people who make their presence known by going above and beyond. Your first step should be to identify those people. How?

Bring together the Senior Leadership Team and ask them to submit three teammates who they think exemplify beliefs and actions that represent how the organization as a whole should behave.

By completing this exercise, you’ll have a list of teammates who have a very strong model of accountability (which is why they were picked by their colleagues). Your culture needs to promote the same level of commitment to the company if you want to grow to new heights.

2. Identify Your Attributes

We may not know what our Core Values are (yet!) but we can reverse engineer a basic list by looking at the top qualities of our selected role models.

Note down all of the qualities that you think enable those teammates to perform at the level they do. Somewhere in this long list of qualities, will be your company’s Core Values.

3. Narrow it Down (Keep, Kill, Combine!)

Core Values work best as a concise list of 3-5 Values. So it’s time to narrow down the list of top qualities to something more manageable.? Here are some helpful tips to make this process easier:

• Group Similar Qualities: Combine related qualities into broader categories to simplify the list.
• Prioritize Impact: Focus on qualities that have the most significant positive impact on the company’s success and culture.
• Seek Consensus: Discuss with key stakeholders and top performers to identify which qualities are most valued and aligned with the company's vision, in their opinion.
• Align with Key Objectives: Even if you have not defined your Core Focus just yet, you can still use your general business objectives to highlight qualities that will directly influence these objectives.
• Test Against Scenarios: Apply the qualities to hypothetical scenarios to see if they hold up in various situations and challenges. You want qualities that deliver consistent results and should try to identify any unintended consequences as early as you can.

I spoke with Andrea Nunes Jones , a Certified EOS Implementer, on the ideal number of Core Values and she suggested an odd number so you always have a tiebreaker, for instance, when doing your People Analyzer.?

“[When doing a People Analyzer], you might say, it's okay to have two that are plus minus, meaning we're not perfect, but for these three, we really need to see Plus most of the time. That’s why having that odd number can be helpful.”

4. Think Back to Your Wins and Fails

One of the most helpful things you can do to identify Core Values is to think back at your past wins and failures.?

Try to remember what qualities brought those wins and what qualities helped you get over the failures.?

By doing this, you’re identifying attributes that are integral to your organization’s DNA and values that, you know with certainty, drove performance, practical outcomes, and recovery in the past.?

Your Core Values mustn’t be just aspirational but grounded in what has historically worked for your company.

5. Reevaluate

At this point, you should have a list of 3-7 Core Values. Don’t announce them just yet.

Now that you’re aware of these values, you’ll see them everywhere in the workplace (if they are indeed there), within your processes, within employees, and your leaders.

This is your chance to further refine those Core Values. Once you’re happy, have a Senior Leadership Team meeting to ensure everyone is completely on board, and then prepare to make the announcement.

A final note, don’t chase Core Values that do not truly reflect what your company stands for.?

“It doesn’t matter what your core values are as much as it does that you’ve clearly defined, communicated, and are living them as an organization.” Gino Wickman, Traction: Get A Grip On Your Business.

Core Values are far more actionable if they are tied to your company culture, tied to the way your company already works.

If your Core Values are too far-fetched from reality or just simply reflect the “ideal” version of your company instead of reality, perpetuating Core Values becomes an uphill battle.

Making Core Values Part of Your Organization

This is the most important, but also the most difficult part. And when you accomplish, it's one of the best investments you’ll ever make in your organization.

The impact of having everyone on the same page, everyone thinking the same way cannot be understated. When every instrument is played in the same key and every paddle rowed in the same direction, you have the opportunity to 10x your company.

But how do you get there?

1. Make it Relatable

Generally, you want to start with announcing the Core Values to your employees (only once the V/TO has been finalized). Gino Wickman in Traction recommends doing so with a powerful speech:

“The next step in the process is to communicate these core values to the rest of the organization. It’s time to create your presentation speech. People won’t necessarily understand what you mean if you merely state each core value. That’s why each one needs to be backed up with stories, analogies, and creative illustrations to drive home its importance.”

Wrapping these Core Values in the context of objectives, lessons, and stories of personal success adds so much more depth – they’re no longer just a list of adjectives. This also makes them significantly more relatable to employees who may not know how you arrived at these 3-7 Core Values.?

2. Make it Tangible

Once you’ve announced Core Values, you can begin to really get creative with how these Core Values exist within your organization.?

“This is where the words have so much power… As we roll [Core Values] out and say it to people, talk about it, find examples, and give awards, [we] really allow those Core Values to come to life.” Andrea Jones, Certified EOS Implementer

For instance, at Hunt A Killer, once we cemented our core values, we had our graphic design team put together this amazing poster that also folded into a booklet. We shipped it out to everybody and it was a huge success.?

The booklet served as a physical reminder of what we stand for. We could put it on the desk or hang it on the walls. The point was to always have it in front of us and be reminded of it in one way or another.?

But that’s not the only way to reinforce Core Values within your workplace.

3. Make it Desirable

I know many Visionaries and Integrators who rely on positive reinforcement to promote Core Values.?

Instead of punishing those who lag behind, recognize and reward individuals who display these Core Values in their day-to-day work. Give everyone clear goals on what to strive towards and create a culture that uplifts each other.

“What we would do is we would pick a specific core value, and then we would share the exact story where that core value was demonstrated. – making it tangible so people can relate. This person did this action, and that was a representation of this core value. It helped bring those Core Values to life.”

4. Bonus: New Blood

In some extreme cases, you may feel that there simply aren’t enough good examples of Core Values being demonstrated in your organization. The People Analyzer will make that very clear.

In those cases, you can shift your focus on bringing in new blood that explicitly aligns with your Core Values.?

Pro-tip: Don’t just try to attract like-minded people with your Core Values, also actively repel those who don’t see eye to eye.

And most importantly, don’t rush hiring. You may be tempted to hire someone who only “kind of, sort of” meets your Core Values because you’ve got too much to do but do not give in to the pressure.

If you hire the wrong person, you’ll just have to redo the entire process again, while also paying for all of the other costs associated with onboarding, training, and off-boarding.

“I think a lot of people rush hiring. Especially when companies are growing very fast and they have so much work, they don't know what to do. And they just go hire somebody… That's where trouble starts because you start either skipping steps, don’t understand who the person is, or take that time to assess.”

The bottom line, you’re only limited by your imagination in how you perpetuate Core Values within your organization.

As long as you understand how your team accepts change and what works for them, integrating Core Values into daily operations won’t be difficult. This is especially true if those values are already widely accepted by your team.

When to Change Core Values?

Irrelevant or untrue Core Values can make their presence known in various forms, through different business scenarios. For instance, you may find yourself in a situation where a majority of your team is exhibiting Core Values, but internally, there isn’t a lot of growth happening.

This may be a sign that your Core Values no longer reflect your organization’s current path.?

And yes, while Core Values are supposed to be “timeless” guiding principles, the reality is, sometimes, they do have to be changed or tweaked.?

You can think of it as “outgrowing” your Core Values or simply the result of a changing market landscape. No matter the reason, it’s crucial you identify Values that are not working and change them.

In general, there are three main reasons any company would consider tweaking its Core Values:

• No longer delivering results
• No longer actionable
• No longer truthful

Any of the reasons will create a disconnect between shared values and actual practices and it can have a cascading on your overall employee morale and productivity. Address the problem before things get to that point.?

There is no single widely accepted framework for changing Core Values – this isn’t something that happens very often.

How you choose and implement your new Core Values depends very much on why your existing Core Values aren’t working. Here are some helpful questions to ask yourself:

• Did I use the prescribed method of identifying Core Values?
• What has changed about my business since I first created these Core Values?
• Are we able to measure and observe the impact of our Core Values in our operations?

Andrea and I spoke about this challenge.

Andrea: The idea of revisiting these core values after they've been created is also really important.

Ryan: How do you know it's time to change a Core Value?

Andrea: One of the tools we use in looking at Core Values is the People Analyzer, where we put ourselves right up against it and say, ‘Am I embodying this core value?’ And if I am not, how can I lead, manage, or hold somebody else accountable to the same Core Values? Maybe we could reframe it or redefine it.

Ryan: And what about people, can they change? Specifically, when you think about the GWC, let's say they don't have the capacity, is that something that they can develop?

Andrea: If someone is not living up to the Core Values, but no one has said anything, that's unfair to everyone. And it can start to create this dent in the culture. Instead, say, ‘Hey, this happened, I'm not letting it fester’. Both praise and conflict, come at it right away and say, ‘Hey, I saw you live this Core Value – thank you.’

I want to end this article with one of the important takeaways from my conversation with Andrea. That is to allow space for people to change, not only giving them an opportunity and time to instill the company’s Core Values but also to create a nurturing environment as a leader.?

It goes back to the wider culture – if you have a shared sense of purpose for achieving common goals, then your people will accept their shortcomings, celebrate others' achievements, and never put up walls in disagreement .?

Finally, if you’d like to hear more lessons from Andrea on managing Core Values, I highly recommend you check the rest of our conversation on the Confessions of an EOS Implementer podcast .?

P.S. Want to work together? Here are a few ways:

1/ Already running on EOS? I am putting together a small vetted group of business leaders who operate on EOS. Apply for the Spring Cohort here . (only open to Visionaries, Integrators and Core Function Leaders)

2/ Need an Integrator or Core Function Leader expertise without the FTE budget? Schedule a Zoom with me here to learn about Talent Harbor’s fractional and professional staffing for businesses operating on EOS.

3/ Are you an EOS Implementer and want to be a guest on our show? Submit a guest form here.

4/ Vetting Certified EOS Implementers and want to know who’s the best? Send me a DM.