How to Write Core Values That Actually Mean Something (a Step-by-Step Guide)
How to Write Core Values for Your Business:
Most core values are decoration.
They get written during a strategic planning session, printed on a poster, hung in a break room, and then never referenced again in any meaningful way. Integrity. Excellence. Teamwork. Innovation. Words that every business claims and none of them can point to in an actual decision.
The reason this happens is not laziness. It is that most people were never taught the difference between a value and a word.
This post covers what separates a real core value from a decorative one, three frameworks for surfacing yours, and the specific AI process for turning a messy brain dump into a set of standards you can actually hold your team to.
If you are still wondering if your business even needs core values, watch this video or read this blog. I used to think mission statements and core values were pointless - until I realized how wrong I was. It took me way too long to realize what a mission statement and core values actually do for your business.
First: What a Core Value Actually Is
A core value is a behavioral standard. It describes what people in your company do — specifically enough that you could use the language in a performance conversation without translating it first.
That is the entire test. Can you say this sentence to an employee who is falling short and have it mean something concrete?
Compare these:
Weak: Integrity.
Strong: We do what we say we will do — even when it's inconvenient.
Weak: Excellence.
Strong: We don't cut corners when no one is watching.
The first version of each is an idea. The second is a standard. One of them is enforceable and one of them is not.
Every business would claim integrity and excellence. That is exactly why those words fail as values — they do not differentiate you, they do not guide behavior, and they do not help anyone make a decision. They are the vocabulary of values without the function.
Start With a Brain Dump — Not a Framework
Here is where most people go wrong on their first attempt: they open a template or a list of common core values and start picking. That produces borrowed values that were never yours to begin with.
Start somewhere else. Start with an unfiltered brain dump.
Sit down and write out everything that matters to how your business operates. Do not organize it. Do not filter for what sounds professional. Do not worry about wording. Just get it out.
Prompts that surface real material:
What do you do consistently that you would never compromise on?
What behavior in an employee makes you genuinely proud?
What behavior makes you furious?
What do you lose sleep over when it is not happening?
What would you be embarrassed for a customer to see?
What do your best employees have in common?
What is the thing you find yourself repeating to your team over and over?
You should end up with somewhere between eight and twenty items. Some will be single words. Some will be full sentences. Some will contradict each other. That is fine — this is raw material, not a finished product.
The brain dump comes first because it is the only step that produces values that are actually yours. Everything after this is refinement.
Then Run Everything Through Three Tests
Now you take your messy list and put each item through three filters. Anything that survives all three is a real core value.
Test 1 — Can You Finish the Sentence?
This one comes out of how Dave Ramsey's team builds values. Take each item on your list and complete this sentence:
"In our company, this means we..."
If you cannot finish it with something specific and observable, the value is not done yet.
"Integrity" → In our company, this means we... are honest? That is not observable. Keep working.
"Integrity" → In our company, this means we tell customers when we made a mistake before they find out on their own. Now you have something. That is visible. You would know immediately if someone was not doing it.
The underlying question is: can you see it? If a value cannot be observed in someone's behavior, it cannot be trained, measured, praised, or corrected.
Test 2 — Would It Change the Experience of Your Business?
This one comes from the E-Myth framing, and it asks a different question: what standards does your business operate by when you are not in the room?
Gerber's whole premise is that a strong business runs like a franchise — the system runs the business, and the people run the system. Your core values are the foundation of that system.
So the test becomes: what would a new employee need to internalize to make decisions the way you would make them, when you are not there to ask?
Go through your list and ask: if a team member did not understand or live by this, would it fundamentally change what it is like to work with our business?
If the answer is no — if it would be a mild preference difference — it is not a core value. It is a nice-to-have.
This test is useful because it separates your operational values from your aspirational ones. Aspirational values are things you wish were true. Operational values are the things your business actually lives and dies by.
Test 3 — The Hire and Fire Test
This is the most direct of the three and it comes from Traction. Two questions:
Would you hire someone specifically because they have this quality?
Would you fire someone specifically because they don't?
If the answer to both is yes, that is a real core value.
If the answer to either is no, it is not a core value. It might be a preference, a good habit, or something everyone in your industry already has. But it is not core.
This test is brutal on purpose. Most people's first draft loses half its list here, and that is the point. A value you would not act on is not a value.
How Many Values Should You Have?
Three to seven. Ideally three to five.
Fewer than three usually means you have not thought hard enough — you have compressed multiple distinct standards into vague umbrella terms.
More than seven means none of them are actually your core. When everything is a priority, nothing is. Your team cannot hold seven-plus standards in their head while making a decision in real time, which defeats the entire purpose.
One more filter worth running: test your list against your best employees. Do your top performers embody all of these? If someone genuinely excellent consistently violates one of your values, it might not be a value — it might be a personal preference you have mistaken for a standard.
The AI Refinement Process
You now have a filtered list. It is probably still rough — some items are adjectives that need to become behaviors, some overlap, some are wordy.
This is exactly what AI is good for. Not generating your values — it cannot know what your business actually stands for. But taking your raw material and giving you clearer language to react to.
Step 1: The Initial Prompt
Take your full filtered list into Claude/Chat GPT / the AI Program of Your choice with something like this:
"Here is my rough list of potential core values for my business. I want you to help me do three things:
First, identify the three to five that feel most essential and non-negotiable.
Second, rewrite each one as a behavioral statement — not just an adjective. It should describe something observable that people in my company do.
Third, give me a one-sentence explanation of what each value looks like in practice.
My business is [brief description]. Write in plain, direct language — nothing corporate. Avoid words like 'strive,' 'passionate,' and 'commitment to excellence.'"
Step 2: Highlight, Don't Choose
What comes back will be closer but not right. Do not pick a favorite version.
Instead, go through phrase by phrase and mark the specific pieces that feel exactly right — the ones where you think yes, that is how I would actually say it.
You might love the verb in one value and the framing in another. You might find one phrase that captures something you have been trying to articulate for years. Mark all of it.
This step matters more than the prompt does. You are mining for your own language, not selecting from a menu.
Step 3: The Blend
Take your highlighted phrases back:
"Here are the specific phrases that resonated from what you gave me: [paste them].
Using these as building blocks, write me a final set of core values. Each one should be a short behavioral statement I could say out loud to a new hire on their first day, plus one sentence explaining what it looks like in practice.
Keep the language plain and direct. It should sound like a business owner talking, not a company handbook."
Step 4: Iterate
If something still feels off, say so specifically:
"The third one sounds too formal — make it sound like something I'd actually say."
"This one is too vague. Make it more specific to what people actually do."
"Combine two and four — they are saying the same thing."
"This sounds like a nonprofit. Make it sound like a business."
Three or four rounds is normal. It takes fifteen minutes.
The Final Test: Read Them Out Loud
This is the step people skip and it is the most important one.
Read your finished values out loud, as if you were saying them to a new employee on their first day.
If they sound like you — if you would genuinely say it that way — they are right.
If they sound like a press release, keep refining.
There is a specific feeling when a value is done. It sounds obvious. It sounds like something you have been saying for years without writing it down. It does not feel impressive — it feels accurate.
That is the target. Not impressive. Accurate.
Why This Matters More Than It Sounds
Once your values are real, they start doing work you did not assign them.
They become your hiring filter — you can build interview questions directly from them and screen for fit before someone ever starts.
They become your performance framework — instead of telling someone they are underperforming, you can point to a specific standard and a specific gap. That is a completely different conversation and a much more survivable one for both people.
They become your decision filter — for business decisions, not just people decisions. Does this opportunity align with how we operate? The answer surfaces faster.
And they become the thing that lets your business operate consistently when you are not standing in it. Which is the entire point of building any of this.
Your Next Step
Set aside an hour.
Do the brain dump first — unfiltered, no editing. Then run every item through the three tests. Take what survives into AI using the process above. Highlight what resonates. Blend. Iterate.
Then read them out loud.
You will not have perfect values at the end of that hour. You will have real ones. And real ones that get used are worth infinitely more than perfect ones that never get written.