Core Values legends

Core Values Legends

1970s funk band Rose Royce had a song where the opening chorus went, “Put your money where your mouth is, or you ain’t saying nothing. Put your money where your mouth is, or you ain’t saying a damn thing. Talk is cheap”. 

For core values to mean something, your values need to cost you something. In my opinion, if there is no cost involved, they are not “real core values”. They are just words on a wall that no one takes seriously. 

Real core values should force you to give regular feedback to your team about “the way we expect everyone to behave at our company”. 

Real core values should force you to make tough decisions that have tradeoffs. Otherwise, they’re just generic “apple pie” platitudes.  

Sometimes you need to spend money to uphold a core value. Sometimes you need to leave money on the table. Either way, core values need to cost you something to be considered “real”. 

Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is to uphold each core value? If so, prove it.

Here’s a personal example. 

Back in 2005, I was part of the leadership team that built New Zealand’s largest business coaching firm at the time, called The Results Group. (In 2008 we rebranded to RESULTS.com and I moved to North America to spearhead our expansion into Canada & the USA. Later on, we spun out a strategy execution software product as a separate business. I exited in 2018 after new investors bought in, and returned to NZ in 2020.)   

One of our core values was “Passion for learning”.

To demonstrate that this was a real core value, we fired our top billing consultant after he refused to attend a full-day training workshop we organized for our consulting staff (who numbered about 50 at the time). 

Bob (not his real name) thought he knew all there was to know about the workshop topic and it was beneath him to spend a day discussing our best practices. 

To be fair, Bob was an expert on the topic. He was someone the other consultants looked up to. But Bob’s failure to attend company training days would set a poor example for our junior consultants. For some reason, Bob refused to budge on the issue, so we fired him to make an example to the whole company.

This termination powerfully demonstrated that all consultants must exhibit a “passion for learning”, no matter how long they have been in the industry, how talented they are, or how much revenue they generate for the company. We were willing to take the revenue hit to send a clear signal about “the way we expect everyone to behave at our company”.

This kind of costly signaling is what it takes to build a powerful company culture that can execute your strategy effectively. Put your money where your mouth is!

I shared the “Bob story” with every new consultant I hired in the following years to reinforce the company culture as we scaled globally. You can bet they got the message loud and clear! 

I call these stories “core values legends”.  

For every core value, I recommend you create 2 stories. A “hero legend” and a “villain legend”.  The Batman and the Joker for each core value.

The “hero legend” is a story of how someone in your company demonstrated the core value in a memorable way. There was a choice to be made, they followed the guidance of the core value, and there were positive consequences. 

The “villain legend” is a story of how someone exhibited the opposite behavior. There was a choice to be made, but they did not follow the guidance of the core value, and there were negative consequences. 

Document a “hero legend” and (where possible) a “villain legend”  for each core value. Instruct every hiring manager to memorize and use these stories when onboarding new team members to teach new hires about your culture and inculcate the right behaviors. 

Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is to uphold each core value?

This question is one of 5 filters I use with clients to help them create “real core values” that will become part of your company’s DNA, so you can build a powerful culture that can execute your strategy effectively. 

Note: Right now, I have a client who will suffer a revenue hit if they remove a highly paid offshore sales rep who is not honoring one of their core values. I hope they have the courage to send a costly signal to the rest of the team that they are serious about building a powerful company culture, and they let this sales rep go. Otherwise, it is not a core value. It’s just words on a wall. 

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Until next time…
Stephen