Core Values are stupid. Here‘s what I do instead.

Hey GirdleyWorld!

We’ve all been frustrated with meaningless “core values” inside of companies.

But I’ve seen the solution in action. So today:

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Great concepts, but did your eyes glaze over? Mine do.

These sound like the Core Values of seemingly every company.

But, I have a secret:

Those are the “Core Values” of Enron. You know, the biggest financial fraud in Texas history.

But their day-to-day behaviors were notorious:

Manipulated financial statements. Insider trading. A cutthroat firing policy. Suspending their “code of ethics” so leadership could do shady stuff.

So why didn’t those core values work?

I think the whole concept of “core values” is kinda stupid. Here’s why:

Core Values should help us make hard decisions. But, when they’re written like this, they don’t.

For example, “Communication” is a core value. Does that mean I tell customers that I’m worried the product we just shipped might break in their use case? Or do I keep that a secret?

They need to be useful and the way we do Core Values certainly is not.

Luckily, there’s a better way. It’s called Core Behaviors.

A few years ago, a CEO friend of mine named Andrew was frustrated with his company’s values.

So he introduced a set of 18 core behaviors.

Here’s a few of them (I’ll put the whole list at the bottom).

These fix the 3 big problems with the classic Core Value approach.

They’re specific. They’re actionable. And with 18 behaviors listed, they’re closer to a complete picture of how the team operates.

They define the specific actions that are special to a culture — which, in turn, defines who we are as an organization.

Choosing behaviors like this is the first step. But unless you can get people to actually live them, they’re just another useless piece of paper.

Next: Andrew’s 4-step process to bring Core Behaviors to life.
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Here’s the 4-step process Andrew used:

Define the Behaviors

Most core values creation has everyone come to a consensus.

Which explains why they’re often worthless!

With Core Behaviors, the CEO writes the first version of them.
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Introduce the Behaviors

For 18 weeks, Andrew emailed the entire company every Monday morning.

He’d explain one of the Behaviors, and talk about what it meant to him.

And he’d talk about how he was trying to live it personally.

This is key: any Behaviors will fail if the leader doesn’t embody them publicly.
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Reinforce the Behaviors

Once Andrew had written about each behavior, members of the team took turns doing the same thing.

One would write that week’s email to the whole company, saying what that week’s Core Behavior meant to them.

On the 18th week, they repeated the cycle.
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Revising the Behaviors

Andrew, as CEO, maintains the list of Core Behaviors.

He revises them periodically based on input from everyone.

Sometimes adding, subtracting, and changing.

The behaviors continue to evolve with the company, people, and times.

Replacing Core Values with Core Behaviors has worked wonders for Andrew’s business.

Culture is now driven bottom-up. It has defined a common identity for the company. And teammates don’t tolerate when they see people not living the behaviors.

Hard to beat as an actionable way to define and reinforce company culture.

Just keep in mind: practice what you preach. If the leader doesn’t follow Core Behaviors, why should anyone else?

If you’re interested, click here to see all 18 core behaviors from Andrew’s company.