Early in my tenure as a CEO, I thought core values were tired, hollow, and meaningless platitudes that companies created simply because they felt they had to. Many of you may view them in a similar light. What I came to learn over time however was that my skepticism towards core values wasn’t because the CONCEPT of them was hollow and meaningless, but instead because so many companies had done such a poor job in establishing theirs, and as a result, their core values BECAME tired platitudes that nobody paid attention to.

We eventually came to view our core values as a small set of vital and timeless guiding principles for our company, that defined our culture and our people, both as individuals and as a team. We used them to add a sense of clarity to everything that we did within our organization, including to attract like-minded people, to reward, recognize and appreciate existing employees, and to make more objective hiring, promotional and other personnel-related decisions.

If your company doesn't currently have any core values established, (or you do, and they're lacking any real world impact), then this episode is for you. I discuss several of the primary lessons that we learned over the years to make our values truly meaningful.