Who you hire
Values define the bar interviewers use, not just skills checkboxes.
Glossary
What are core values?
Core values are the 3–7 non-negotiable beliefs that guide how a company hires, decides, and behaves — especially when no one is watching. Done well, they make hard trade-offs obvious. Done poorly, they're a poster in the lobby nobody can recite.
TL;DR
- 3–7 beliefs that guide hiring, firing, and prioritization.
- Specific enough that the opposite is a real option.
- Must cost you something — a hire, a deal, a feature.
- Not vision (where) or mission (what) — values are how.
Why core values actually matter
Every company has values — written or not. The question is whether yours are deliberate or accidental. Real core values show up in four places:
How you decide
When two options both make sense, values are the tiebreaker.
Who you promote
Promotions broadcast which behaviors get rewarded — louder than any handbook.
Who you let go
Firing for values violations (not just performance) is the strongest signal you can send.
Core values vs mission vs vision
The three get confused constantly. Here's the clean split:
Vision
Mission
Values
Answers
Where are we going?
What do we do?
How do we behave?
Time horizon
10+ years
Today and ongoing
Permanent
Changes?
Rarely
Occasionally
Almost never
Audience
Whole company + market
Customers + team
Every employee, every day
Real core values examples (and why they work)
The strongest values share one thing: a competitor could defensibly pick the opposite. That's the test.
Netflix
Freedom and Responsibility
Codifies a trade-off: high autonomy, but high consequence. The opposite — top-down control with low accountability — is what most large companies actually do.
Amazon
Customer Obsession
Explicit about the tiebreaker. When customer interests clash with competitor moves, investor pressure, or internal politics, customer wins. Every time.
Patagonia
Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm
Two halves that constrain each other. A product team can't ship something brilliant if its supply chain damages the planet. Forces real trade-offs.
Stripe
Move with urgency and focus
Most companies pick urgency OR focus and let the other slip. Stripe pairs them, meaning fast shipping AND ruthless prioritization — saying no to most things.
How to define your own core values
The mistake most companies make is locking the leadership team in a room to brainstorm aspirational words. Real values are archaeology, not invention — you uncover what's already there.
1
Audit the behavior you already reward
Look at your last 12 months of promotions, terminations, and bonuses. The behaviors that got rewarded are your real values — written or not.
2
Interview your best people
Pick 5–10 employees you'd clone. Ask: 'Describe a decision you're proud of here. What made it feel right?' The themes are your culture's signal.
3
Draft 5–7 candidate values
Write them as full sentences, not single words. 'Integrity' tells you nothing. 'We do what we say we'll do, even when it's expensive' is a value you can act on.
4
Stress-test against trade-offs
For each, ask: 'Would we walk away from a top candidate or a $1M deal to honor this?' If no — it's a slogan. Strong values cost you something real.
5
Operationalize them
Bake values into interview rubrics, performance reviews, and quarterly recognition. If your values don't show up in HR systems, they're not values — they're posters.
Strong values vs weak values
Weak (decoration)
- • Integrity
- • Teamwork
- • Innovation
- • Excellence
- • Respect
No company publicly claims the opposite. Interchangeable with every competitor.
Strong (operational)
- • Disagree and commit
- • Customer obsession over competitor obsession
- • Ship weekly, even when it's ugly
- • Default to transparency
- • Hire slow, fire fast
Each has a real opposite. Each forces a trade-off in day-to-day decisions.
Frequently asked questions
What are core values?+
Core values are a small set of explicit, non-negotiable beliefs that describe how a company expects its people to behave — especially when no one is watching. They guide hiring, firing, prioritization, and day-to-day trade-offs. Strong values are specific enough that the opposite is a real option some company could choose.
How many core values should a company have?+
Three to seven. Fewer than three and they feel incomplete; more than seven and nobody can name them, which means they don't drive behavior. Most enduring companies (Netflix, Patagonia, Amazon) sit in the 5–7 range.
What's the difference between core values and mission or vision?+
Vision is where you're going (the future state). Mission is what you do every day to get there. Core values are how you behave on the way. Vision and mission can evolve; core values shouldn't — they're the constant.
What are examples of strong core values?+
Netflix's 'Freedom and Responsibility', Amazon's 'Customer Obsession', Patagonia's 'Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm', and Stripe's 'Move with urgency and focus' are all strong because they make trade-offs explicit and the opposite is a defensible alternative someone else might pick.
What makes a core value weak?+
Generic words like 'integrity', 'teamwork', 'innovation', and 'excellence' fail because no company would publicly claim the opposite. If your values are interchangeable with any competitor's, they're not values — they're decoration. Strong values cost you something: a hire, a deal, a feature.
How do you define core values for a company?+
Start with the behavior you already reward and the people you've hired who embody it. Interview 5–10 employees about decisions they're proud of. Cluster the patterns. Draft 5–7 candidate values, then stress-test each: 'Would we say no to a great hire or a big deal to honor this?' If the answer is no, it's not a core value.
Related reading: What is an OKR? · What is a QBR? · OKR vs KPI
Turn your values into operating rituals
Ordo AI helps leadership teams hard-wire values into hiring rubrics, performance reviews, and quarterly recognition — so what's on the wall actually shows up in the work.