The Birth of Core Values

Here’s how we established our core values at my new start-up, Trinity Builder Solutions.

Before learning about EOS (aka Traction), the thought of Core Values for a business seemed rather underwhelming. Honestly, I wrote them off as an aspirational list of characteristics mounted on a conference room wall, generic in nature, and ignored by most.

When I learned about the EOS version of core values in 2017, it changed the course of our hiring, promoting, and evaluating of our team members at kitchen & bath CRATE.

Perhaps you’re considering implementing EOS in your business. Or maybe your organization could use 3-5 guiding characteristics by which you can decide who should be “on the bus” or not. Either way, I’d like to walk you through our recent creation of core values for our new start-up, Trinity Builder Solutions. It might be enlightening to see how we developed them from scratch.

So here we go, the six steps to developing your Core Values.

Step 1: Identify Your Rocks and Rockstars

I love how Kim Scott differentiates between “rocks” and “rockstars” regarding team members. Rocks are your consistent, dependable “grinders” who create a stable foundation. Rockstars, on the other hand, are your “comets,” driving growth, leaving things a bit messy in their wake but taking you to the next level and pushing you towards industry dominance.

In this step, we thought of five individuals who, if replicated, would drive TBS to success. Since TBS is a start-up, we used a few names from our leadership team and additional names from kitchen & bath CRATE.

Step 2: Brainstorm What Makes Them Great

On a shared Google Sheet (a whiteboard would have also worked), we listed the 3-5 people chosen in step 1 in a row along the top. Then, thinking through them individually, we asked ourselves, “What about this person will (or would) propel us to victory in the market?” 

This is what it looked like:

Quite a list, right? But all over the place. Seeing a list like this felt like we were headed in the wrong direction. “How will we ever narrow this down?”

Step 3: Identify Commonalities

Along with the rest of our 3-person leadership team, we discussed each characteristic on the list. Everyone needed to understand what each one meant. We found a few instances in which participants interpreted a single attribute differently. When this happened, we split it into two and added as many additional characteristics as needed.

Now, using color coding, we grouped the similar and pervasive characteristics.

Here’s the result:

Ah, yes. It’s started coming together. What began as a list of 60+ attributes was coalescing into a handful of compelling characteristics. We’re making progress!

Step 4: Extract The Commonalities and Generally Describe Them

We then made a list of the six commonalities, and we each applied additional clarifying words and phrases to them. A few phrases resonated with us more than others. A few commonalities were hard to describe. After a few hours of discussion, we landed on this initial list:

• High Character - Honesty & Integrity - Good Humans

• Relentless Cockroaches - We do the hard things. We say the hard things.

• Self Aware - Know thy self.

• Exacting in Nature - We don’t let little things go. We don’t let things stay broken.

• We Are Process-Driven

• Humble & Selfless

Step 5: Assign the First Draft to a Member of the Team

It’s important to note that, via the steps above, these core values were much more “actual” than “aspirational.” Think about it. We started by describing existing individuals and their existing traits. We were NOT describing what we wanted to become, but what we are. This is a critical distinction. The reason? It’s much easier to double down on what you are than become something you are not. And if you can’t succeed with what you are, you will likely not succeed.

At this stage, the leadership team was aligned and understood where our core values were headed. So I took the ball and ran with it, turning our many hours of brainstorming and debate into the following attributes and descriptive sentences.

• Good Humans - We are honest, kind, and above all, care for our team and our clients.

• Relentless Cockroaches - We consistently pursue remarkable results no matter the obstacles.

• Self Aware - We are honest about our strengths and weaknesses, doubling down on the former and shoring up the latter.

• Exacting in Nature - We’re willing to dive into the smallest detail, knowing foundational failure often begins with a hairline crack.

• We Are Process-Driven - We consistently evaluate our processes and improve them regularly.

Step 6: Adjust Them, Use Them!

The core values are reviewed every 90 days in the EOS meeting cadence to ensure they remain the most essential attributes for industry dominance. Changing market conditions, pivots, or even personnel changes can cause a core value to fall off the list or emerge from the ether. Since TBS is a brand-new entity, I fully expect that our core values will evolve in the years to come. But for now, these will work well!

We will now start using these core values in our job descriptions, job postings, and quarterly evaluations. They will be the first standard by which we’ll evaluate if someone is “one of us.” And, if what we’ve learned at kitchen & bath CRATE holds true in TBS, those misaligned with these core values will matriculate out of the business.

So there you have it. This is how TBS’s core values went from floating in the heads of the three-person leadership team into a precise and actionable set of guiding attributes. Now, off to get them tattooed on my shoulder!

Books of Note: I’m a history and biography nut. You may know this. And I loved Schulz by David Michaelis. It’s the biography of beloved Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. Why did I like it? The man was complicated. Very complicated. And I now view his art through a very different lens than I did as a boy growing up reading Peanuts every day without fail. So will the book burst your bubble slightly in terms of contrasting the creator and creation? Perhaps. But it’s a fascinating read.

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