Core Values

Last night I was reading an article for school about core ideology including core values in business. It explained that so many businesses don't have appropriate values. Some of the key definitions were:

- A small set of timeless guiding principles, core values require no external justification; they have intrinsic value and importance to those inside the organization

- There is no universally right set of core values

- The values must stand the test of time

I was really interested by this because when I think of company values I think of the same stupid set of sentences that every company has that mean nothing to anyone.

Also included in this article were core values of some well known companies. I was impressed with Philip Morris' core values. A company of questionable character in my opinion had pretty honest values....

- The right to freedom of choice
- Winning - beating others in a good fight
- Encouraging individual initiative

This made me think of my own core values and how those drive me. If a business could actually have core values that its employees could connect with, that could be really powerful. At the same time it seems pretty difficult to achieve in that individual core values are so custom. I guess religions are successful with it....that's a bit different though. I am getting nowhere. ;)

Points taken from, J.C. & Porras, J.I. "Building Your Company's Vision", HBR