Mistakes When Designing Core Values: The Top 10

Mistakes When Designing Core Values
Company values often adorn the walls of offices or feature prominently on corporate websites, but turning those words into meaningful team norms can be a significant challenge. Too many companies make mistakes when designing core values. These common mistakes lead to ineffective and watered down platitudes that fail to create the strategically aligned and differentiated behaviors required for values to mean something to the business and the people in the business.

The Definition of Corporate Values
We define core values as the deeply ingrained and unique beliefs that guide all company actions and decisions — especially when times are tough.

What Core Values Are Not
Effective core values are NOT aspirational, passive, or common.
What Core Values Are
Effective core value ARE lived, active, and serve as an internal and external differentiator.

The Problem with Most Corporate Values
Unfortunately, we know from organizational culture assessment data that the majority of corporate values are either toothless or disingenuous. Unsupported values create employee disengagement and cynicism while undermining leadership effectiveness. If you and your leaders are not willing to proactively support, visibly stand behind, and consistently model and reinforce your core values, you will be better off without them.

The Top 10 Mistakes When Designing Core Values
Here are the top ten mistakes when designing core values:

Core Values Mistake #1: Treating Core Values as a Communications Event
Potent values require intentionality and ongoing reinforcement. One-time events just inappropriately raise expectations for changes that will not materialize. Posters and emails do not change the hearts and minds of employees.

Values are not a communications issue; they are a strategy, culture, and change management issue. Treat them accordingly.
Core Values Mistake #2: Having Too Many Values
Overwhelming employees with a long list of values creates confusion and dilutes what matters most. Aim for a manageable number of four to six core values. Invest the time to identify the ones that are absolutely essential for individual, team, and organizational success for your unique situation.

The goal is to have employees agree upon the importance and definition of what each value looks like behaviorally in action.
Core Values Mistake #3: Selecting Values that are Similar to Everyone Else’s
The majority of Fortune 500 companies have values in common with each other — i.e., integrity, respect, excellence, etc. While they are all positive qualities, they do not help to truly differentiate one culture from another. Invest the time it takes to determine what sets you apart from the pack.

The key question that values should answer is: “Given our strategic vision and mission, what really sets our core beliefs and decision making filters apart from others in the way that creates a distinct and difficult to replicate advantage?”
Core Values Mistake #4: Selecting “Permission-to-Play” Values
Potent core values should not focus on minimum standards of behavior — e.g., integrity, respect, and teamwork. Minimum standards do not motivate higher performance. Effective values should tell employees what is required for high performance.

For example, what about teamwork distinguishes high performers in your culture from other companies in the same space?
Core Values Mistake #5: Selecting Aspirational Values
We know from leadership simulation assessment data that it is important not to waste your time on “aspirational values.” We define aspirational values as behavioral expectations that are currently lacking throughout the organization but would be nice to have now or in the future. While aspirational values can be exciting to discuss, aspirations cannot be woven into how work gets done.

Effective values align with reality.
Core Values Mistake #6: Not Operationalizing Them
We know from action learning leadership development projects that ability to operationalize your company values ensures that they go beyond being just hopeful statements and instead become guiding principles that shape the behaviors and decisions of a high performance culture that excels at strategy execution.

There is no reason to create values if you do not plan to put them into meaningful action.
Core Values Mistake #7: Not Linking them to Your Strategy
We know from organizational alignment research that strategic clarity accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performing companies. We also know that leaders perceive their strategies to be twice as clear as those who report to them. Before you invest any time in designing or updating your core values, make sure that your vision and mission is clear enough, believable enough, and implementable enough for employees to fully commit to.

The goal is to ensure that your strategic direction is clear enough to directly inform the key beliefs required to succeed over the long term.
Core Values Mistake #8: Not Weaving Your Core Values into Everything
We know from project postmortem data that for values to matter, they must be deeply ingrained into how people think, work, and behave. To reinforce them, ensure that your core values are purposefully incorporated into all business practices including: behavioral interviewing, new employee onboarding, custom training programs, performance management, succession planning, rewards and recognition, decision making, employee engagement and retention.

The objective is to ensure that all business practices reinforce how people are expected to behave to be successful.
Core Values Mistake #9: Not Leading by Example
When it comes to behavior change at work, any allowed deviation by leaders or high performers can undermine the potency of core values. Both formal and informal leaders must set the tone to inspire others to follow and solidify team norms. If leaders do consistently demonstrate, reinforce, and hold themselves accountable to the desired key behaviors, employees are less apt to embrace the core values.

Do your leaders and high performers consistently walk the talk?
Core Values Mistake #10: Not Proactively Measuring and Adjusting
Designing and operationalizing core values is not a one-time effort. Regularly measure how well your values are being integrated and the impact they’re having. Use surveys, focus groups, and feedback mechanisms to assess employee perceptions and behaviors related to company values. Analyze this data to identify gaps or misalignments.

Then, refine your strategies and approaches to ensure your values remain relevant and actionable.

The Bottom Line
Core values should help guide the business and the people where they need to go by ensuring that employees can translate the WHAT of your strategy into the HOW of their daily behaviors. It requires intentionality and effort. You will know you are on the right path when your values are: