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While many companies pay lip service to company values, and many more don’t pay attention past the brand development and marketing stage, Xavier Lederer shares an evergreen post from his company blog that explains why establishing and maintaining core values are integral to a company’s direction, growth, and success.

‘Corporate culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that is completely within the control of the entrepreneur.’

– David Cummings, Co-founder of Pardot

The #1 thing I wish I had done differently? I wish that I had developed clear core values and that I had used them in my recruiting process, to filter out candidates that didn’t fit our culture,” said the CEO of this consumer good company that went through a roller coaster over the past decade. Ten years ago his company had a lot of traction, their products were flying off the shelves, and they were in a hiring spree. Several years later they hit a number of roadblocks that put them in a tough financial position – and the impact of their toxic employees (these high-performing employees, whose values are not aligned with the company values, and therefore create a bad atmosphere within the team – and, when they are in sales, with clients) became extremely painful.

What are core values?

Core values are a handful of non-negotiable behaviors that everybody in your company lives by. Core values establish and protect the company culture: they are a set of beliefs that define the desirable and the unacceptable behaviors in the company. Core values are not aspirational – these are rules that you actually live by on an everyday basis. As such core values are timeless: they will still be the same in 100 years.

Core values in a company work just like parenting values. I learned this from my grandmother, who single-handedly managed to maintain a steady discipline in her house full of grand children during the summer months

Key points include:

• Why you should care about culture
• How to know you have the right core values
• Clashing values

Read the full article, Core Values, An Anchor To Your Company Culture, on ambrosegrowth.com.