Core Values That Actually Work

Core brand values aren’t just fluffy words you put on posters. 

But without the right approach, that’s all they’ll ever be. 

Core brand values — when done right — can be absolutely transformative for your organization’s culture, effectiveness, and impact. 

But you can’t just come up with 5 words that all start with the letter “R” and call it a day. 

So how do you create core values for your brand that ACTUALLY make a meaningful impact for your team? 

Jonathan and Eric have some ideas — and some things to watch out for — in this week’s episode of Designing Tomorrow. 

Episode Highlights 

• [00:00] Discussing a disappointing experience at a museum and how it led Jonathan to reflect on the importance of core values
• [01:32] This episode is for executive directors and board members looking to build meaningful core values
• [03:39] First tip: Core values should be easy to remember and not lame to repeat, using his organization's value "Find Out" as an example
• [05:54] The importance of backing core values with specific behaviors and evaluating them regularly
• [07:34] Emphasizing the need for continuous evaluation, suggesting quarterly reviews rather than annual ones
• [09:35] The fluidity of core values and the necessity of adapting them as an organization evolves
• [11:35] Fifth tip: Use core values as a foundation for hiring decisions and team building
• [14:23] Focus on one core value per year to allow teams to deeply integrate and embody it

Quotes

• "I've seen a lot of core values out there, and I'm not really sure how many of them are actually enacted by their organization." - Eric Ressler [01:00]
• "Core values need to be easy to remember or not lame to repeat. It has to be something that somebody would actually say in their day-to-day life." - Jonathan Hicken [03:39]
• "You have to back these values with specific behaviors...what does a five out of five on the 'Find Out' value actually look like when you show up to work?" - Jonathan Hicken [05:54]
• "To me, these are the brand values, but to you, they're the team values. I think they're the same thing." - Eric Ressler [10:18]
• "When these values are done excellently, it’s clear how they’re driving impact." - Jonathan Hicken [10:29]
• "I challenge you to think about how the brand, the rebrand, the strategic plan you’re putting together, makes its way to your team and what that’s going to look like in people's day-to-day jobs." - Jonathan Hicken [13:56]
• "Values need to be actionable...something that you can actually score people on or have discussions around at the very least." - Eric Ressler [15:06]

Resources

• Article - Nail Your Brand Strategy with this Simple Framework
• Video - Demystifying Strategic Planning: Insights from a Seasoned Expert
• Article - Create Better Social Impact Messaging by Finding Your Brand Voice

Transcript

Jonathan Hicken [00:00]:

Eric. So I visited this museum recently, a nonprofit museum, a relatively large one, and this museum claims to be a cultural gathering place in the heart of the city. And I was like, great, that sounds amazing. I want to go experience this. So we went to the ticket booth and the individual who we interacted with at the ticket booth was seemingly angry, upset, very cold and dismissive. And it really got me thinking about how this value as an organization, this gathering plays value was or wasn't making it down to the person that worked at the front desk. And more broadly, it got me thinking about how core values and building core values are so important to making a social impact brand really, really hum. Today I'm going to propose five ways that you can build core values for your organization that actually work. How does that sound?

Eric Ressler [01:00]:

I'm excited because I've seen a lot of core values out there and I'm not really sure how many of them are actually enacted by their organization. So let's do it. 

Jonathan Hicken [01:32]:

So we're talking about how to build core values that actually work for your organization. Now, this is for executive directors, board members who maybe have their teamwork and integrity posters on the wall in the office somewhere and are really realizing this isn't working, this isn't serving anybody. And yet there is a culture I'm trying to build in order to advance our impact. And in order to build a healthy, sustainable business, there are a certain set of values that we need to uphold. And so it's both important and really difficult to do, but I think I've got five suggestions that'll help our listeners build core values that actually work.

Eric Ressler [02:10]:

Okay. I'm excited because we do core value work with our clients all the time. I think the process, even of going through determining what your value should be can be quite fruitful. But then I have a little bit of a question around, well, how do you actually then take those values and have them influence people's behavior within the organization and actually improve your mission and improve the experience with your organization? So yeah, I'm excited to see what you

Jonathan Hicken [02:33]:

Got. All right. Well, by the end of this, you let me know if you'll live this at Cosmic. Okay. So, all right. Number one, they have to be easy to remember or not lame to repeat. Now, what I mean by that is it's like one word, it's two words. I mean, it is short and it's meaningful, but it has to be something that somebody would actually say in their day-to-Day life, which means these core values are going to be super dependent on the organization itself, where in the country or where in the world you're located, and the culture of your home is really going to factor into this, but it needs to not be something that's super lame to say out loud. Let me just give you an example. At the organization I run, we have one called Find Out. A lot of science kind of underpins a lot of the work we do. So we live this one called Find Out. It's something that you could actually say to a colleague in the course of a conversation like, oh, I had this question about this, that, or the other thing. Okay, well let's Find Out. And so that is something that now we hear being repeated in the office, which helps reinforce the value itself.

Eric Ressler [03:39]:

Yeah, I mean it sounds to me as you're describing this, something that's easier to remember but not lame to repeat. That's a challenge in my opinion, right? Because I think, for example, a lot of times you might lean on like, oh, let's find the three Rs or something thing or these, and then what I've seen happen is people use these single words, and frankly I'm guilty of it, in even our own cultural values that we've created. If you asked me to recite them, I probably wouldn't get them all. There's one that I do remember though, which is Kaizen because it's a distinct word and I don't feel lame saying it because it's kind of a cool word too. And it's got an interesting kind of origin to it and story behind it, at least for me personally. Kaizen by the way, means continuous improvement. So the trap that I've seen with the single word, easy to remember, is people use these kind of generic words sometimes that maybe don't really mean all that much, or they've been used to mean so many different things. They basically become ubiquitous empathy, for example, which I'm almost certain is one of our values and it is literally one of our values that we live, but how does that actually influence our culture at Cosmic? And I could talk about that, but I dunno, I'm just curious, how do you navigate that tension between easy to remember, not lame to repeat, but still meaningful? I mean Find Out is a great example, but is that a challenge in your experience to come up

Jonathan Hicken [05:01]:

With those? Yeah, it's no more of a challenge than finding the right language for a good piece of content. So a lot of it is, I think listening, listening to the real language that's used within your team or amongst your constituents and your customers is really like if I needed to challenge someone on my team to go gather information about it, how would I say that? I would say the most natural thing to come out of my mouth would be Find Out. 

Eric Ressler [05:24]:

Find Out.

Jonathan Hicken [05:25]:

Yeah. So I can almost guarantee you that there's another word for empathy in your organization that people actually are saying, but they're not actually saying the word empathy. So if you can figure out what is that word or that phrase that your team's already using, then that's a great way to incorporate it into your core values.

[05:54]:

You actually said you were curious to learn about how these play out, and I think this number two is a really important point here is you have to back these values with specific behaviors. So here's what that actually looks like. You could do this on a one to five scale, literally Find Out, what is a five out of five on Find Out actually look like when you show up to work. I walk in the front door at work or I log onto my computer for the morning and it's like, what am I doing today? What is the behavior that demonstrates that I'm living this value of finding out? And you also do it on the other side. You do what does a one out of five, what does it look like to fail at finding out? And you document these things and you share them with your team, and it's like, this is what I actually mean. This is what excellence actually looks like in your day-to-day job. And for example, as it relates to Find Out.

Eric Ressler [06:46]:

So you're suggesting that you do this per position,

Jonathan Hicken [06:50]:

Ideally it's a proposition at the starting point. Make it something that's general for the whole team. Got it. So for example, for the Find Out value, one of the sort of underlying behaviors for that value is talk to your customers or talk to your constituents, talk to your stakeholder group. For someone in my team, it may be, that might be their donor, and so maybe it's like how many times are you talking to donors and running an idea by them? Other times it may be a volunteer or maybe a school teacher. These are different stakeholders. If we're talking to those people, that's probably a good sign that we're trying to Find Out,

[07:34]:

Evaluate regularly. I hate annual reviews. I think annual reviews are garbage. I think that we as a team need to be evaluating how we're doing constantly at very minimum every three months. So what we do at my organization is we take our values and we've defined what they look like and we're having these conversations with each other at least once every three months, if not like every single time we're checking in. And so it's saying, Hey, right now on this spectrum, I think you're right around a three or four on the Find Out value. And here's one way that I think that you could take this up to a five based on your job and your work. It really isn't about the number in that case, it isn't about a GPA on how many values you're getting a five on or whatever. It's really more about the conversation. But the takeaway here is that we are constantly talking to each other about these values. And does any of this sound familiar to the work that you're doing with your clients?

Eric Ressler [08:35]:

I mean, not with our clients. What we do with our clients as it relates to brand values, which I think is essentially the same thing that you're saying here, is kind of helping to define and craft these values. We don't go as far as to actually help them figure out how to embody them as an organization, how to actually operationalize them within their team, because that's just kind of outside of the purview of our work and our contracts with our clients. But I think it's important, and I'm personally selfishly curious about this, because we are a value driven organization and we've crafted our values and recrafted them over the years, and I feel like the exercise of crafted them is helpful. It's a thoughtful process, it's a fun way to get people involved, but I don't feel like we are necessarily continuously evaluating our team or myself against these values in any kind of rigid way. It's just done kind of intuitively. And I think that that's probably leaving some value on the table around how we could be better embodying these values in our culture.

Jonathan Hicken [09:35]:

And I think there is a balance. We don't want these values that get written in stone and stay on the wall for 10 years, right? Because probably a good chance that the organization has changed or the problem that you're trying to solve has changed. So I do believe that these core values can be fluid and can change. In fact, in the last three years at our organization, I think they've already changed three times. So we're willing to adapt and be like, Hey, what is this organization? What is the impact that we're trying to have? What does that need right now? What does that need from us and how do we need to show up in order to continue to advance it or to create the best team we can? I mean, you talked about brand values. I mean, in my opinion, there's no reason why the brand values and the team values shouldn't be exactly the same.

Eric Ressler [10:18]:

Yeah, I think they are the same. I think I'm just using different terminology coming from a brand background, to me, these are the brand values, but to you, they're the team values. I think they're the same thing.

Jonathan Hicken [10:29]:

And this brings me to point number four is when these values are done excellently, it's clear how they're driving impact. So in the case of the Find Out value, right? Science is an important piece of the work that we do. And so by living the Find Out value, we in some cases are actually living the scientific process in some ways, and it is important for our authenticity and to be able to actually stand in front of donors and our audience and say, we're a science organization, that we are practicing that value in our own work.

Eric Ressler [11:02]:

So these are not just arbitrary values, are not just about team building and about culture. These are actually values that shape the effectiveness of your organization

Jonathan Hicken [11:12]:

And it shape the shape and drive the impact forward. So your values need to be clearly linked to the impact that you are attempting to have. The fifth tip here is to use these values to hire people,

Eric Ressler [11:35]:

To build

Jonathan Hicken [11:36]:

Questions that get at these, that these values put interviewees in a position where they have to demonstrate their capacity to live these values, put them in scenarios, real life scenarios where these values are going to be tested and use these values to build your culture moving forward, not just with the people that you have now. How often do you work with your clients on team building or hiring and team construction?

Eric Ressler [12:05]:

We don't really, other than kind of advising clients around what the makeup of their brand and marketing team might look like, we don't really go into hiring and firing conversations with our team members or with our clients too often.

Jonathan Hicken [12:18]:

All of our conversations that we have about brand and marketing, I'm constantly bringing it back in my head, in my day-to-day job. I'm constantly thinking about how am I getting these brands to permeate or these values to permeate everything that we do. I think that it's a necessary ingredient to making a brand really tick. So I'm kind of surprised to hear that you don't talk about this with your clients more because to me it's a fundamental ingredient in the recipe for ultimate impact.

Eric Ressler [12:44]:

Yeah, I mean, I would agree that discussions around how to let's say embody the brand, those are discussions that we have when it comes to more hiring best practices and how do we use these values to hire people. Frankly, that's just not something we really go to. But I mean, it's something we've thought about again more intuitively than anything else, just being honest. We have a set of values and a culture that we've built over 15 years of running Cosmic. Again, I think there's room for improvement on how we could best operationalize that. They're probably a little dusty. They probably need some refinement. These are some good ideas that I'm probably going to use to do that after we finish this discussion. But I think it's something that we don't have a formula for testing new applicants for or evaluating people based on those values. We've been a little bit more rigid about that in the past. It's probably something we should again, dust off and do a little bit more formally again. But in terms of we just don't, not positioned to help clients with hiring other than advising them on the kind of roles that would help support some of the strategies that we're recommending based on the impact goals that they've identified.

Jonathan Hicken [13:56]:

Well, for our executive director or CEO marketing leader audience here, I challenge you two to think about how the brand, the rebrand, the strategic plan you're putting together, how that makes its way to your team and what that's going to look like in People's Day-to-Day jobs. A pro tip I have here is once you've done this work and once you've really have values that you feel like are working is to attempt to focus on one per year.

Eric Ressler [14:23]:

Oh, interesting. Where you

Jonathan Hicken [14:24]:

Really dive deep on this one thing. We attempted this over the last few years that it's been really successful. So we picked one value that as a team, we were all going to hold ourselves accountable to improving in some way. Just to give you an example, this was Experiment. We were in the middle of a pivot and we knew we needed to try a lot of things quickly and fail quickly in order to understand where we were headed. So we focused everybody on Experimentation and everybody throughout the course of the year had one or more experiments that they were responsible for executing and sharing back with the team. And so we all went all in on this one thing for one year, and it really did change the culture of the team to one that was more comfortable with experimenting.

Eric Ressler [15:06]:

Yeah, I really liked that idea because I think especially if you have a collection of values and you're like, you guys just need to do all these things, you don't get the opportunity to fully live those different values. And so what I'm taking away from this is values need to be actionable. Something that you can actually score people on or have discussions around at the very least, and that you're giving people the opportunity to fully play around with these values and turn them up, so to speak, and see how that influences their day to day. I think these are some great tips. It's definitely got my gears turning around how we could be better about using our brand values and our core values at Cosmic, even more so, like how we might help our clients think more deeply about how their brand values should actually shape their behavior and their actions at their organizations. So Jonathan, thank you for putting this together today.

Jonathan Hicken [15:52]:

That'll do. Thanks, Eric.