Are your company's core values still relevant and in use?

Successful and sustainable small businesses with five or more employees work best when they have 3-5 core values in use.

A well-communicated set of core values creates a freedom-within-boundaries environment for employees to be taught, reminded and supported on how things are done in the business.

For example, with core values in place, employees can work more independently by making decisions based on the core values without constantly checking everything with their boss (probably you!).

Core values are also a massive help for business owners when used in recruitment, retention, training, reward and recognition, coaching, redirecting behaviour, and running nearly every meeting in your business.

Using core values in your business can speed up decision-making and enable you, the business owner, to do business owner work on your business instead of being dragged into the details of every person's decision-making (who you're already paying to do that!)

Investing the time (it could be just an hour or two) to discover core values and let everyone know about them is the starting line for business owners.

Unfortunately, for far too many business owners, telling everyone about the core values once can be the finish line, too.

In the years since the Culture Is Everything book was published, I've worked with 100's of small business owners to help them discover their core values and implement them in their business.

Only a few of those business owners have stayed the course and gotten the most out of their investment in their core values.

Far too many business owners get to the starting line of how a values-based business could help grow their business and unshackle them from many of the decisions they make everyday.

But, then they get distracted and forget to return to the project that was going to set them and their business up for years to come.

If that's you, it's time you scheduled a few minutes to stress test your core values and see if they are doing the heavy lifting they could be.

I recommend you do these two things right now:

  1. Re-read your core values - twice - and then ask yourself: Are your core values descriptive enough to help your newest employee make everyday decisions in their job?
  2. Ask your longest serving employee and your newest hire this question: When did you last hear our core values mentioned or used?

If the answers to the stress test questions don't reassure you that your core values are optimised, it's time to review, reset and re-embed them.

A set of 3-5 core values that have been used every work day, and barely changed in 16 years, are one of the most important culture fundamentals of my business. I'd be much more of a slave to the job without them.

Keep at it.

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PS - In 2025, I am working with small business owners to simplify and strengthen their business culture.  HERE's how I could help you.

PPS - The picture at the top of this page is a core value example from Grant Mayo and the team at Nutrition Warehouse. They're working their core values hard. Are you?