Crafting Core Values: A guide to aligning your team's purpose with your business vision

Crafting Core Values: A guide to aligning your team's purpose with your business vision

A great resume, the right personality type, and the ability to leverage the ever-changing technology landscape, including using AI, are so important. However, those data points are still missing one thing. What are the core values of that person? What are the values that guide their decisions? Even more importantly, are their values aligned with your values, your team’s values, and the values of your business? Is that only important for your company's culture, or is it also correlated with reaching your business goals? This article I wrote aims to take a journey together to see if there is a connection between core values and reaching goals.

Aligning your core values with your business goals can't be overstated.

Just look at Apple's story under Steve Jobs. With his over-the-top commitment to design and innovation, Jobs propelled Apple to become a shining example of how to stay true to who you are, disrupting the status quo and setting new standards, changing the tech industry (and the world) forever.

But, as I've said before, core values are more than words on a wall - they're the guiding principles that define a company's identity and shape its culture. They reflect what is vital to your organization, your employees, and, ultimately, your customers.

Why should you align your core values with your business goals?

Aligning your values with your future vision brings clarity to hiring decisions. Moving forward, you’ll be able to go beyond the resume, not just assessing skill and experience, but also determining whether the candidate you’re interviewing is in alignment with your company and will be a good culture fit. This will build a team that is rowing together in the same direction, improving employee and customer retention.

Who doesn’t want those results?

How This Guide Can Help You Leveraging my expertise in defining company core values and guiding others toward success, I created this simple guide to help leaders streamline crafting a values list. We often recommend that leaders execute this step-by-step plan in a one or 2-day offsite to ensure your core values reflect your company and you get 100% buy-in from your team.

Reflect To begin with, delve into what sets your organization apart. Discover the foundational beliefs that have helped your company's journey to where it is now and identify what key factors make you stand out from your competitors. Core values aren’t something you manufacture; they’re uncovered by probing what your company truly stands for and what it offers the world.

Stuck?

Ask yourself or your team these questions to help get you started:

What key stories and milestones in our company's history have shaped our identity? What do our clients have to say about us? Are there any recurring themes in their positive feedback? How does what we do bring our team purpose beyond just making a profit?

Tip: Make sure you’ve gathered a diverse group of team members in this collaborative brainstorming session and created an environment that encourages open dialogue. Everyone should feel free to share their unique perspectives. If you do that, you’ll get a list of values beyond surface level and your insight.

Article content Once you’ve dug deep to understand what’s at your company's core, it’s time to turn all those great ideas and insights into short, punchy core values that everyone on the team can support. Make sure these values are easy to understand and motivating, capturing what your organization is all about in a few powerful points.

This isn't the time to get philosophical, create pages and pages of thoughts, or rely on generic sentiments with no real meaning. Remember, your core values should be guiding principles your team can easily remember and connect with. They should also have a connection to your company's vision and what you offer to the market.

Here are great examples of punchy, memorable values that have made a big impact.

"Customer obsession rather than customer focus" - Amazon "It's best to do one thing really, really well" - Google "Accountability: If it is to be, it's up to me" - Coca-Cola

It's mind-blowing to witness how these straightforward statements have shaped what these giant corporations offer and the roadmap to success they've set for their staff and stakeholders.

You can do the same.

Test Your core values may sound good in theory, but to ensure they align with what your team is creating, test them in hypothetical real-world scenarios. You can be open to getting input from key team players to fine-tune your values so they align with what you want to achieve in your business and make sense to the clients you serve.

Here are a few ways you can do that:

For example, if one of your values is "Radical Honesty," evaluate how your commitment to honesty influences your choice when faced with a situation where being truthful might lead to short-term disadvantages, such as admitting a mistake to a client that could jeopardize your relationship.

Check if your core values resonate with employees and customers. To ensure alignment, ask team members to reflect on clients they've worked with, identify the values crucial in their interactions, and evaluate whether they match your values. Evaluate if your list of values matches your company's actions and behaviors. Consistency is crucial. When what's said doesn't match what's done, it leads to confusion and distrust. For instance, in hospitality, claiming "Tailored service every time" without a structure for custom experiences will only confuse and upset the guest.

Tip: Keep your core values meaningful by constantly refining and validating them. This will help ensure everyone is on the same page and you stay true to yourself as you grow. Great things happen when the whole team is aligned with the same powerful values.

Integrate Lead by example. You can't expect your team to join if they don't see you demonstrating your commitment to what you've defined as most important.

Here’s a list of ways to make your core values front and center

Values-centric recruiting and onboarding Values-based team-building exercises Values-based assessments/performance reviews

Get your team to help develop ideas so they can remember and implement what you’ve come up with. If you put effort into integrating your values, they’ll eventually become second nature.

Live it out Your work isn't done now that you’ve chosen your core values. Your success as a leader in this area will depend on your consistency. Ensure you use your core values to steer day-to-day operations, shape strategic initiatives, make hiring and firing decisions, and set long-term goals.

The Final Word Establishing core values that align with your business goals goes beyond simply writing motivational sayings. They need to be lived out every day. Reflection, good communication, and constantly tweaking them are critical. They're like the heartbeat of your company, giving you clarity when minor or major issues arise (and they will).

I hope this resource is helpful when drafting or revisiting your company's core values to align with your business goals. I would appreciate hearing your feedback on how these simple steps have helped you progress in shaping the company culture you're building and what results you've seen.