The 3 Tests of a Core Value
A core value is a handful of non-negotiable behaviors that anchor your company's culture. It's not 27 different behaviors, and it's not five different behaviors that look really good on the wall, on a poster, on a plaque, or on your website because you think it's great marketing. It's those non-negotiable behaviors, three, four, five, maybe six, those non-negotiable behaviors that anchor your culture.
You may never market it to the outside world because it's about what's important internally. Critical to your culture, but there's a really important way to make sure that it's not just a plaque on the wall. In the first half of my career, I worked for a lot of Fortune 500's that had the beautiful plaque on the wall with their core values, but if you asked anybody in their organization what their core values were, they'd have to go look at that plaque. It was meaningless. It was a marketing tool.
There are three tests of a core value - and if you have core values, think about your core values and run it through these three tests right now. If you don't have core values, when you create them, use these three tests to make sure they're the right ones.
Is it a fireable offense? Are you committed to firing anyone? Even your hottest salesperson, best salesperson. Are you committed to firing anyone who repeatedly and blatantly violates a core value? If you're not, then that core value is not a core value. It may be a nice behavior you're striving to achieve, but if you say hey, this is my best sales person. She brings in 50% of our revenue, I can't fire her for not respecting our people even though respect is a core value. Well if that's the case, your core values become a joke. They become an excuse to fire people for core values, but you allow your best people to get away with not living the core values.
Are you willing to take a financial hit to uphold your core values? If you're not, again, it's not a core value. It may be something you aspire to, but if you're not willing to take a financial hit, it's not really a core value.
Is that core value alive in your organization today? Core values are not aspirational. Think about it. They can't be both non-negotiable and aspirational or you'd have to fire half your people tomorrow. Your core values are what's best, what's right, what's most noble about your organization today, and boiling that up to the top.
All of you have core values in your organization. Remember what core values are. They're a small number of non-negotiable rules, non-negotiable behaviors that anchor your culture. Some of you that said yes in the chat did that because you've taken the time to proactively document your core values. For the rest of you, trust me you have core values. They just happened over time. They're probably not documented, but you may have non-negotiable behaviors in your organization, like whoever yells the loudest wins. Or never admit that you made a mistake or you get in trouble. You may have a whole bunch of disempowering hurtful core values. You need to be proactive about what those core values are.