Is it time to upgrade your core values?
Core values are a building block of a strong culture.
They provide instruction, clarity, and guidance to help employees understand what is expected of them when working in your business.
Core values also serve as reminders and guidance for the leaders and managers of your business: If you or your leaders are ever stuck on how something should be done, refer to your core values!
In my experience, the correct number of core values is between three and five.
The reason for that range is pretty simple:
- It's impossible to define the behaviours expected by your employees with less than three core values; and
- It's almost impossible for anyone to remember more than five core values.
If you're reading this, my best guess is that you already have a business with a strong culture and three to five core values in place.
You might have also read this article about the transition from a 'family culture' to a 'performance culture'.
If you've read that and it resonated with you, the question I'd like you to consider today is:
Are your core values STILL right for you and your business?
If you're transitioning from a family culture to a more accountable, performance-oriented culture, updating your core values is an important task to consider.
A minor tweak...
Updating your core values doesn't have to be dramatic, but it should be clear and considered.
In the last 12 months, I am aware of four businesses with 15-30 employees that have reviewed their core values as part of their journey to higher performance.
One of those is Premier Strategy: a mature, Victorian-based small business.
I was invited to join Premier Strategy's annual retreat and lead a process to review, refine and upgrade their core purpose and core values.
For quite a few years, Premier Strategy has had three core values: 1) We are real; 2) We are loyal; and 3) We are curious.
During the retreat workshop, two new core values were suggested: 1) We are accountable, and 2) We are invested.
The Premier Strategy's senior leadership team are considering which of the new core values to add and will then finalise in a clear and considered way.
Both of the new core value options, when implemented, will bring a performance edge to the culture at Premier Strategy, and that's exactly what owner, Jo, and her leadership team are working towards.
Even if Jo and her team add two new core values, they will still be within the ideal limit of three to five core values - perfect!
Is it time to review and possibly update your core values to align with your evolving performance culture?
Keep at it,
Tristan
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