My first big corporate job came with lots of perks. But after just a few weeks, I noticed some disturbing behavior among my peers and the company’s leadership.

I eventually came to the conclusion that my values just didn’t sync with the company’s. We were on a collision course. I knew I had to find a company that shared my values—or start one.

Building a values-based organization is critical if you want to create a culture that achieves lasting impact. But values have to be more than platitudes. You have to translate them into behaviors. And to do that, you have to drive them deep into the organization.

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So how do you make sure your Core Values become more than a plaque on a wall? I’d like to suggest six actions you must take as a CEO or a leader to drive your Core Values deep into your organization.

Live your values.

Teach your values.

Reward your values.

Hire people based on your values.

Review people based on your values.

Let people go based on your values.

The most powerful way we can communicate our values is by the decisions we make. People watch these carefully. The more we can connect our everyday decisions to our values, the more we will reinforce them and shape our culture.

Listener Questions

Mark left this comment on a blog post I wrote about core values: “Got to be honest, core values are code for do what I say and not what I do. My grandfather taught me a long time ago, people who run around telling you their values have no values. Values are what you live and do, not what you say, I have worked for three companies where leadership are talking core values, when it comes right down to all of them valued money.”

Daniel asked, “Do you think it is important to identify core values if you are a small company or is this just something that bigger companies do?”

Sheri asked, “Are core values relevant to vendor, customer, and investor relations?”

Special Announcements

People often write in to ask, “Can I pick your brain on something?” I finally decided to address this head-on. If you are interested in picking my brain on something, let me encourage you to go to MichaelHyatt.com/pickmybrain

If you have a question, comment, thought or concern, please leave me a voicemail:

This is a terrific way to cross-promote your blog or website, because, if I use your question on the show, I will link to it.

Episode Resources

In this episode I mentioned several resources, including:

Coaching: Building Champions

Magazine: Productive! Magazine

Membership: Platform University

Post: Question 7: How Do You Communicate Your Core Values?

Software: Nozbe

Show Transcript

You can download a complete, word-for-word transcript of this episode