One of the things we accomplished the past two days at our company retreat was a lengthy brainstorm about our company’s core values. While they are not fully finalized yet, here are the ones we have drafted so far:
- Fearless
- Committed
- Innovative
- Personable
I will describe those more fully once they move out of draft mode.
Other core value sets that we have seen around Atlanta include: 1) positive, self-starting, and supports (from Pardot), 2) dream big, work hard, learn constantly, and enjoy life (from Allen Nance), and 3) be nice, dream big, pay it forward, and work hard, play hard (from the Atlanta Tech Village).
Core values come to life in many ways. One of the most immediate ways I saw them take action is that people started calling each other out when they were not being fearless (e.g. on the wakeboard for instance) or not being personable (e.g. when being stubborn in a conversation). Defining the company’s core values in a written form provides a constant reminder and barometer against which a startup is able to understand who they are and who they should continually strive to be.
What are your thoughts on our draft core values? What are the core values in your startup?
Not sure I have a startup up to apple them to but customer driven is a must to me. It is the number one thing that defines any company that I want to be a part of.
Thanks for the comment Lance. That is really important.
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