How Do You Discover Your Company's Real Values?
You discover real values by examining the traits of your best people, your most respected leaders, and your best customers — then finding the common attributes among them, mixed with the traits you most want in the company. Authentic values are surfaced from within, not adopted from a list, which matters because only genuine values hold up under hold-period pressure.
Start with your most impactful people. Identify your A-players — those who do excellent individual work and inspire others to perform, collaborate, and hit goals. Consider each separately and write down the traits that best describe them. These are the behaviors already driving performance against the plan.
Look to leadership next. Define how your leaders set the example: whether they practice what they preach, treat people equally, and which leaders are most respected and represent the company you want to project. Capture the most positive traits of that leadership, and document where they overlap with the attributes of your top talent.
Then look to customers, who often understand better than the company what makes it work. Talk to your best and most recent customers about why they chose you and why they stay, and what set you apart. This doubles as a differentiation exercise, surfacing both cultural values and the positioning insight that feeds durable revenue.
Finally, look for commonalities. Circle the traits shared across top people, leadership, valued staff, and customers, and blend in your own best traits and those you want more of. Because you started from your own organization, the resulting values are true to your culture — which is what makes them strong enough to anchor the team when the pressure of the planning horizon tests them.
← Back to Topic 14 — Company Core Values