8 Questions: Core Values

Too many companies treat core values like a branding exercise. A handful of broad, agreeable words slapped onto the About page or on a poster in the break room in the hope they will make the business look more principled.

But core values are not about appearances. They’re not aspirational. They’re not supposed to sound good for the outside world. They’re supposed to be true to you and your company.

When I work with leadership teams through EOS, we don’t invent core values—we discover them. Because they’re already there. In how your best people show up. In what you reward, tolerate, and protect. In the way your team instinctively handles pressure or opportunity.

True core values:

• Aren’t accidental

• Aren’t generic

• And aren’t created by one person alone

They come from honest reflection. From deep conversation. From noticing patterns across your team’s best moments—and your worst. It’s not dry analysis; it’s more like archaeology. You’re digging into who you already are at your best. And that best that you want to take forward.

When discovered this way, core values stop being that About page or that poster in the break room and start becoming a leadership compass. They become a tool for hiring, coaching, decision-making, and even letting people go. They bring clarity. Cohesion. Identity.

And when lived fully, they create something rare: culture that holds firm—especially when it’s tested. So much of culture is accidental and/or undefined. In EOS we make it intentional.