One of the first questions clients of PFD Group ask us is what are great core values?
It’s a question that’s difficult to answer because core values are only as great as a company’s ability to fully live and deploy them.
Making the definition of “great” even more complicated is that each company is or should be wholly unique from any other business. So should their core values. Even two companies who share the exact same stated values should have very different approaches to why those values are the guiding ones and how each business uses those values to guide their daily decisions.
The more unique your company is, the more your core values will define that uniqueness and the better culture you’ll have.
Getting Started in Defining Your Values
If you’re in the early phases of building your business, selecting your core values can be the most important task at hand. Your values will define your company, define how you do business, guide how you select and manage your employees, and even define how your customers will do business with you.
Most importantly, your core values are exactly that: core. They should not change to match current trends or shifts in consumer sentiment. These are the values you set in place that will guide you year after year, no matter what.
If your core values are already in place, only extenuating circumstances should drive their change. While the below examples may help you relook at how you share your values with your employees and customers, they below should not serve as inspiration for change.
If you’re new to building core values, the below should serve only as inspiration, and not, obviously, text to be copied. Build your own core values to reflect your unique business and your own personal values.
50+ Core Values
To get you started, an infographic published by Visual Capitalist in tandem with research from Valuegraphics showcases the top 56 global values with a breakdown of importance by region. The top five globally are family, relationships, financial security, belonging and community.
Another list of possible core values and an excellent breakdown of how often each is used can be found in a study published by MIT Management Review, When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk?
The survey lists 62 values that are used by at least 1% of companies that have publicly defined their formal values statements.
A Word About Integrity
On the MIT chart, “integrity” clearly and significantly outpaces all other values with 65 percent of the 562 businesses audited listing “integrity” as a core value.
Notwithstanding that Enron and Wells Fargo, both deemed some of America’s worst “bad corporate actors” list integrity among their core values, integrity has grown to be a term that is so loosely defined that it has become nearly a cliche.
If you choose to follow the crowd and adopt integrity as a core value, be sure to fully define exactly what that means for your business. Also note that none of PFD Group examples below list integrity as a guiding principle, despite the fact that they are all well-known, respected businesses.
What Makes a Great Core Value?
So back to the original question. What makes a great core value?
The best core values are the ones that shine through in all you do and the ones that set your company apart. They are the values that are wholeheartedly believed and experienced by your leadership, your employees, your partners and your customers.
For core values to make a difference, you need to talk about them all the time. You have to live by them all the time. You need to hire, fire, discipline, and promote by them.
–Scott Rritzheimer, Scale Architects
Business Core Values
Here are just a few companies who are actively achieving their defined core values.
Airbnb Core Values
Champion the Mission: We’re united with our community to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.
Champion the Mission
Be a Host
Embrace the Adventure
Be a Cereal Entrepreneur
Etsy Core Values
Etsy guiding principles include:
We commit to our craft.
We minimize waste.
We embrace differences.
We dig deeper.
We lead with optimism
G Adventures
The core values of G Adventures are Love, Lead, Embrace, Create, Do.
We LOVE Changing People’s Lives
LEAD with Service
EMBRACE the Bizarre
CREATE Happiness & Community
DO the Right Thing
CB Insights
Help us solve the biggest challenges in tech. Hungry. Humble. Helpful. Hard-working. High standards. We’ve built our company with these values—and we’re growing faster than ever.
Motley Fool
At The Motley Fool, our highest priority is to foster inclusion and belonging so all employees can thrive both personally and professionally. We believe diverse teams perform better. From our board of directors to our recruiting pipeline, we strive for diversity, both inherent and acquired.
Motley: Foster inclusion and belonging.
Collaborative: Do great things together.
Innovative: Search for a better solution. Then top it.
Fun: Revel in your work.
Honest: Make us proud.
Competitive: Play hard, play fair, play to win.
Red Carnation Hotels
10 Reasons Why We Love Working for Red Carnation Hotels
“If you have happy employees, you have happy guests,” Beatrice Tollman, President & Founder. Like every loving family, we run on true family values: trust, respect and caring for each other. This, we believe, is why we all give our very best in everything we do – and why we are known as one of the world’s top hotel companies, achieving countless accolades such as the renowned Forbes five-star ratings and being voted as either the top hotel, or in the top three, on TripAdvisor in every single location.
Vans
To us, “Off The Wall” is a state of mind. It means thinking differently and embracing creative self-expression. It’s choosing your own line on your board and in your life. Vans has over 50 years of connecting to youth culture and we continue to advocate for action sports while recognizing the global “Off The Wall” connection between our brand and art, music, and street culture enthusiasts.
We are DETERMINED — we have the Van Doren spirit. We’re scrappy and resourceful. We use ingenuity to tackle every challenge head on and find a path forward, even if it’s not a straight line.
We are CONNECTED — culturally, digitally, socially. We build lasting and meaningful relationships with our consumers, customers, partners and family, wherever they might be.
We are INCLUSIVE — We invite unique perspectives and value different experiences. We want to hear each other’s point of view.
We are vibrant and EXPRESSIVE in how we speak, interact and get our jobs done.
We have FUN working at Vans because we work hard and play hard in our pursuit of enabling creative expression.
If you need help creating your core values or ensuring your corporate culture is actively adopting and performing against those values, the PFD Group can help. Contact us today to set up an exploratory call.