How to discover your company’s core values

Today I am going to teach you a simple process for discovering your company's core values and why clear core values leads to a much more valuable company.

Discovering your company's core values isn't about top-down founder, or investor decisions — it's about unearthing the principles already driving your best people and your biggest successes. And when it's done right, it serves as massive accelerator for your business.

Core values are more than just bullshit words—they're the glue that holds your organization together. In a growing company that values diversity in thought, background, and experience, core values provide the crucial common ground. When authentically discovered and embraced, they lead to:

• Healthier teams
• Faster growth
• Better problem-solving
• Higher valuations
• A more enjoyable journey for everyone involve

Many companies stumble in defining their core values because they make decisions in an ivory tower, disconnected from the real culture that's driving the company. They then roll these values out in a sloppy way, forcing values onto the organization that don't resonate with the team's true identity.

But there's a better way.

Here's a step-by-step exercise to uncover your company's authentic core values:

1. Gather your leadership team to meet
2. Ask each leader to write down 3 people (not in the room) who, if you had 100 of them, could help your company take over the world
3. List all named individuals on a whiteboard. Include anyone mentioned twice with a + sign
4. Give the team 5 minutes to describe why they chose those people
5. Capture all the qualities mentioned by the team on the whiteboard
6. Conduct a "keep, kill, combine" exercise with the qualities displayed
7. Refine the list until you have 3-7 values that deeply resonate with the team
8. Assign someone to write a "core values speech" as homework, providing 2-3 sentences of context for each value
9. Seed the values with others in the org for 30 days before locking them in

This process works because:

• It's bottom-up, not top-down. You're discovering values already present in your culture, not imposing them.
• It focuses on real people and behaviors, not abstract concepts.
• It involves the entire leadership team, ensuring buy-in from the start.
• It allows for discussion and refinement, leading to truly resonant values.
• Ensures the values are clearly communicated and understood.

Remember, core values aren't just words—they're the principles that guide your company through every decision and challenge. By using this bottom-up approach, you'll identify values that already exist within your organization's DNA. These authentic core values will serve as a powerful tool for alignment, decision-making, and culture-building as your company grows.

What hidden strengths might you uncover in your organization? The answer could be the key to your next phase of growth.

Here's to building stronger, more aligned teams,