Strategy · Proving to Organising
Core values that guide behaviour
You write down three to five core values, each with the behaviour you want and the behaviour you don't, and you know how to use them when you hire and review people.
Does this sound familiar?
- There are four core values on the wall. Ask an employee which ones, and they'll name one at most.
- Your core values are committed, customer-focused, professional and honest. Your competitor has the same four.
- You want to pull someone up on their attitude, and realise there's nothing you can point to.
- You hired someone on their CV. Three months later you know they don't fit, and you could have seen it in the interview.
Who it's for, and when
For founders with core values on the wall that nobody mentions at work, or who don't have any yet. You write a first version in Proving, when people join who you didn't shape yourself. You pin them down in Organising, when you no longer hire everyone yourself.
The model
Core values are the behaviour you ask of everyone in the company, including when you're not around. The DNA box next to it is about something else: what you brought with you as the founder and refuse to let go of. The lesson The DNA: the soul of your company is about that source; this one is about the rules the whole team can live by, with the behaviour you want and don't want written underneath. If you're writing a name with behaviour under it, it belongs here.
Collins and Porras saw that companies that stayed at the top for decades held on to a few core values while their strategy and products kept changing. You don't invent a value like that. You find it in the people you'd most like to clone, and in moments you were proud of. Their test: would you keep it even if it cost you money for a while? If not, it isn't a core value. That's why there are only three to five.
Harnish adds the practical part. A value only works once you use it: when you hire, in the performance review, when you thank someone and when you pull someone up. That's why the canvas asks for behaviour you can see, for each value.
Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last (1994), and their article Building Your Company's Vision (Harvard Business Review, 1996). Verne Harnish put core values on the One-Page Strategic Plan in Scaling Up (2014).
Name and definition
A short name in your team's own words, 'We call back' rather than 'Customer focus'. Under it, one sentence on what you mean by it.
Behaviour you want
What someone who lives this value does on an ordinary Tuesday. 'You call a client back the same day, even if you don't have the answer yet.'
Behaviour you don't want
What happens when the value is broken. This part helps most, because you can pull someone up on what they did rather than on who they are.
When hiring
For each value, one question about something the candidate actually did: 'Tell me about a time you had to call a client without having the answer.' Listen for the behaviour you want, or the behaviour you don't. A value is hard to teach someone; you're better off hiring for it.
When reviewing
In the performance review, for each value, one moment you saw it and one moment you didn't, with a date. How to set that against the results of someone's role is in the lesson The A-player matrix.
Pitfalls
Words everyone has
Integrity, commitment, quality. Nearly every company has them. For each value, ask whether a competitor could put it on their website too.
A wish dressed up as a value
'Innovative' because you'd like to be, while nothing new has been built in three years. If you really want to innovate, make it an objective with a number.
Watch and read
A Scottish chief executive on why core values are easy to understand and hard to live by, and what his company did to turn them into behaviour.
Watch on YouTubeHarnish in three minutes on the biggest mistake with core values, and how it led to the wrong decisions about people.
Watch on YouTubeIn Dutch, three minutes: the three mistakes companies make when they try to bring core values to life.
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
How, as a founder, you write down a short list of values and behaviours and hire on them, because your first hires shape the culture for everyone who comes after.
Watch on YouTubeRead
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
Jim Collins en Jerry I. Porras · 1994 · ISBN 9780060516406
For this lesson, read the chapter More Than Profits in particular, on core ideology: which core values the companies that lasted had, and how they held on to them while everything else moved. The Dutch edition is Gebouwd voor de toekomst (ISBN 9789058712134).
View the bookScaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't
Verne Harnish · 2014 · ISBN 9780986019524
The chapter on core values: discover them in the culture you already have, test them for a while and link them to hiring and reviews. The strategy canvas comes from this book. The Dutch edition is Scaling up: de groeiformule (Business Contact, 2016, ISBN 9789047008682).
View the bookApply it
- 1
Who would you clone?
Pick three to seven people who make you think: that's how we do it. Not necessarily the leadership team. Collins and Porras call it the Mars group: who would you send to Mars to rebuild the company there?
- 2
What stories do they tell?
Ask each of them about a time a colleague did something they were proud of, and a time something really wasn't on. Write the stories down. The values are in them.
- 3
What keeps coming back?
Give it a name in your own words and one sentence of explanation. Test each value: would we keep it even if it cost us money? Could a competitor have it too?
- 4
What do you see someone do, and not do?
For each value, the behaviour you want and the behaviour you don't. Concrete enough to point to in a conversation.
- 5
What do you ask in an interview?
For each value, one question about something the candidate actually did. It isn't on the canvas, but it goes with it.
- 6
Do they hold up for a quarter?
Use them for a quarter when you hire, thank people and pull people up. Anything that didn't come up once in that time, you cut or rewrite.
Examples
One value, written out in full
An installation company. The wall said 'Craftsmanship'. The stories were all about engineers who only signed off a job once the client had seen it working. Name: We show it working What we mean by it: a job is only done once the client has seen it working. Behaviour we want: you walk the client round the job before you leave. Behaviour we don't want: getting the job sheet signed while the installation still isn't running. Interview question: tell me about the last job you signed off. How did you know the client was happy? In the performance review: one moment in the past six months when you saw it, and one when you didn't.
A marketing agency
The owner wanted 'Honest'. The team named a colleague who'd talked a client out of a campaign that wouldn't have delivered anything. It became 'We say so when it won't work'. Behaviour we don't want: taking on a job you know won't work, because it's revenue.
A wholesaler
There were eight. After a quarter of testing, three were left that genuinely came up in conversations. The other five were wishes. They came off the wall.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- You write the Kernwaarden section of your strategy, and it stays on your strategy page.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.Your core values are committed, customer-focused and professional. A new employee says their last employer had exactly the same ones. What does that tell you?
2.Under Core values, the founder writes: 'I come from construction and I've never missed a handover. I want that here too.' What do you say?
3.One of your values is 'We say no to work we can't do well'. A big client asks for exactly that kind of job. What does the Collins and Porras test say?
4.One of your values is 'We call back'. What's the best way to test for it in an interview?
5.Clients complain they hear nothing for days when an engineer still has to find out the answer. What behaviour do you write under 'We call back'?
6.This year you're choosing a new market and a new product. A member of your leadership team suggests renewing the core values as well. What do Collins and Porras say?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Why you exist · You write down in one sentence why your company exists, found by asking why five times, and you use that sentence for your next big decision.
- A role with a purpose · Everyone in your team knows why their role exists, and how you'll both be able to tell they're doing it well.
- The A-player matrix · You know who carries your team, and what you'll do with each of them.
Not sure where to start? Take the growth scan