A core value is only a value if it can veto a decision. The examples below are written as “We [do this], even when [it costs us that]” rather than as adjectives, like “We say a deadline will slip the day we know, even when it costs us the renewal.” Eighteen of them, grouped by the kind of decision they settle, each with a verdict.
What makes a core values example worth copying
A core values example is worth copying when it names a behavior instead of a virtue, says what keeping it costs, and could settle an argument two reasonable people are having. Four criteria separate the usable ones from the wall decorations, and every example on this page passes all four.
A thing you do, not a word you admire
“Integrity” names a category. A value names an action: what happens on the Tuesday when the easy option is available and cheaper. If nobody could act differently after reading it, it is decoration.
A price you say out loud
Every real value costs something in the moment you keep it: a renewal, a fast hire, a launch date. A value with no cost attached is a preference, and preferences do not survive a bad quarter.
It settles a fork you actually reach
You should be able to name a decision it decided. If two sensible people can point to it and reach opposite conclusions, it is not a value yet, it is a mood.
Few enough to say from memory
Three to five. A team can hold five sentences and use them in an argument. Eleven values are a wall poster: nobody quotes them, so nobody is bound by them.
The formula behind every example here
The formula is one sentence with two halves: the behavior you commit to, and the cost you accept for it. The second half is the one almost every published value list leaves out, and it is the half that does the work.
Integrity. We always do the right thing and hold ourselves to the highest standards in everything we do.
We say a deadline will slip the day we know, even when it costs us the renewal.
The first version cannot be broken, because nothing in it can be checked. The second can be broken by lunchtime, and everyone on the team would know. That is the difference between a value and a poster: a real value is a promise you can be caught not keeping.
Why a core values list of adjectives does not work
Search for a core values list and you get a hundred adjectives to pick from. The problem is not that the words are bad, it is that a word cannot settle a fork in the road. Here are the five that appear most often, and what happens when you try to use each one to decide something.
Nobody claims the opposite
No company writes “we mislead people when it pays”. A value that has no opposing camp cannot settle an argument, because both sides in every argument already believe they have it.
It argues for both answers
Ship late and polished, or ship early and fix in public? “Excellence” supports whichever one you already wanted. The fork stays exactly as open as before you read it.
It describes a method, not a choice
Work together is how most work happens anyway. Written as a value it mostly gets used to shut down the person who disagreed, which is the opposite of what the word promises.
It has no cost attached
Try new things is free to say and expensive to mean. Without the second half, “and we accept that one in three will be written off”, it never stops anybody from doing the safe thing.
It grades people, not decisions
It cannot be used to decide anything, so it ends up used to judge whoever left at six. A value that only shows up in performance reviews is a stick, not a rule.
None of the five is wrong as an idea. They fail as values because they pass the vote and then never appear in a decision again. The test is blunt and worth applying to your own list: could you name the last time this value cost you something? If not, it is a description of how you would like to be seen.
Core values examples for how you treat customers
The first group governs the moment a client asks for something that is good for them and bad for you. These are the values that get tested weekly in a service business, which is why they are the easiest to check for honesty: look at last month’s invoices.
We say a deadline will slip the day we know, not the week it slips
Vetoes the hopeful status update. Costs you the calm week you would have had by staying quiet, and roughly one client per year who wanted to be told late.
We turn down work we cannot tie to the client’s own numbers
Vetoes the well-paid project nobody can measure. Costs real revenue: a nine-person agency using this one refused a $48,000 retainer that would have been brand work with no result attached.
A client can leave with everything we built, in a format they can open
Vetoes the convenient export nobody can read. Costs you the friction that used to keep two or three accounts from moving, and wins the referrals of the ones who left well.
Every client has one name to call, and that name answers
Vetoes the shared inbox that makes everyone responsible and nobody accountable. Costs flexibility in staffing, because you cannot quietly move people mid-project.
Core values examples for how you decide when the team disagrees
The second group is the one most value lists skip, and the one people actually need. A disagreement between two competent colleagues is not solved by wanting excellence. It is solved by a rule about who decides and on what basis.
The person with the number wins the argument, whatever their title
Vetoes the decision that ends because the founder is louder. Costs the founder a few arguments a quarter, which is the entire point and also the reason this one is usually written and never kept.
You may argue until the call is made, and then you carry it in public
Vetoes the quiet sabotage that follows a decision somebody lost. Costs the comfort of saying “I was against it” later, which is the cheapest sentence in any company.
A decision that is not written down did not happen
Vetoes the meeting that gets held twice. Costs about ten minutes per decision, and works only if the note names the person who decided, not the room that discussed it.
When we cannot agree, we take the version we can undo in a week
Vetoes the six-month bet that was chosen because it was the ambitious option. Costs some upside, and buys the right to be wrong cheaply, which small teams need more than upside.
Core values examples for how you handle mistakes
The third group is where you find out whether the other groups are real. Values about mistakes are the only ones that are tested when the news is bad, and they are the ones people watch most closely, because everyone has something to lose.
The first hour after a mistake belongs to the client, not to the explanation
Vetoes the internal thread that runs while the problem is still live. Costs the satisfaction of establishing whose fault it was while it is still fresh.
You bring your own mistake to the meeting before somebody finds it
Vetoes the quiet hope that nobody checks. Costs you the ability to punish self-reported mistakes, and it stops being true the first time you do.
A repeat of the same mistake is a process problem, and the third is a people problem
Vetoes both the blame after the first time and the endless patience after the third. Costs you a clear rule you then have to apply to somebody you like.
If we caused it, we refund it before the client asks twice
Vetoes the case-by-case negotiation that takes longer than the money is worth. Costs a predictable amount: one agency budgets about 1 percent of revenue and treats it as a marketing line.
Core values examples for how you spend money and time
The fourth group is where values stop being about character and start being about arithmetic. A small company reveals what it values by what it refuses to buy and which hours it protects, not by what the About page says.
We buy the dull tool that works over the exciting one we would have to fix
Vetoes the migration that somebody wanted to do anyway. Costs you the fun projects, and saves the two weeks a year those projects usually take when they go badly.
No internal meetings before noon, including ours
Vetoes the quick sync that eats the only quiet block in a maker’s day. Costs you speed of coordination, which is a real cost and worth naming rather than pretending it is free.
Anything over $2,000 that is not in the quarter’s plan waits for the next one
Vetoes the good idea that arrives in week seven with a discount attached. Costs a few genuine opportunities per year, and buys a quarter that means something.
We would rather buy software than hire for a task a tool can do
Vetoes the headcount that arrives to run a spreadsheet. Costs you flexibility, because a tool cannot be reassigned when the work changes shape.
Core values examples for how you hire and let people go
The last group is the shortest and the most revealing. Almost every hollow value collapses here, because hiring and firing are the two decisions where keeping a value costs the most and the pressure to bend it is highest.
We leave a role open rather than fill it with our second choice
Vetoes the hire made in week three of being short-staffed. Costs you a quarter of being visibly understaffed, which is exactly when the value gets tested.
Every candidate is asked for a decision where they paid for one of our values
Vetoes the culture interview that measures likeability. Costs you a comfortable conversation, and it only works if you accept an answer that makes the candidate look bad.
Nobody is too good at their job to follow how we work
Vetoes the top performer who is allowed to skip the parts they find tedious. Costs you that person, sometimes. Not paying that cost once is how the rest of the list stops being believed.
When somebody leaves, the team hears the real reason, in one sentence
Vetoes the vague departure note that leaves everyone guessing who is next. Costs you the comfort of privacy, so it needs a limit written next to it: the reason, never the details.
This topic is lesson 2 of 17 in From Zero to Goals: The mission as a veto. Use one sentence to reject the wrong work, and write yours so it can. You make the calls inside one realistic company, run the exercise on your own goals, and the course ends with a 15 question exam (12 to pass) and a certificate worth putting on your profile.
How to turn an example into your own
Copying a sentence from this page gets you a value you can defend but did not choose. Five steps turn it into one that belongs to your company, and they start in an uncomfortable place on purpose.
Start from a decision you got wrong
Not from a word you like. Take a call from the last year that you would make differently, and write the sentence that would have stopped it. Values found this way are already tested, because the cost is a number you remember.
Write the behavior, not the adjective
Replace the noun with a verb and a moment. “Transparency” becomes “we send the client the number before we have an explanation for it”. If you cannot name the moment, you do not have a value yet.
Attach the cost in the same sentence
Add the “even when” clause and make it specific: a renewal, a hire, a launch date, a dollar amount. The clause is what stops the value from being quoted approvingly and then ignored.
Test it against your last hard call
Read the sentence and ask whether it would have changed what you did. If it would have supported either answer, it is one of the hollow five. Rewrite it or drop it.
Cut to three, then put them where decisions happen
Three sentences on the wall of the room where you plan the quarter beat eleven in a slide deck. Values only work where they can veto something: hiring, pricing, and the list of goals you are about to commit to.
How many core values should a company have?
A company should have three to five core values, and the limit is arithmetic rather than aesthetic: a value only works when somebody quotes it in an argument, and people quote what they remember. A team of twelve can hold four sentences. Nobody holds eleven, so a list of eleven quietly becomes a list of zero, with the added cost that you now believe you have values.
There is a second reason to keep the list short. Values are supposed to conflict with each other occasionally, and that is when they are useful: “protected mornings” against “bad news early” is a real tension, and the team resolving it out loud is the culture. With eleven values, every decision has one to support it, so none of them constrain anything.
Honestly: Celorly has no field for values, and adding one would not be the useful part. What it holds is the row above and the row below. The mission, vision and BHAG sit on the strategy screen, and the quarter’s goals sit in a list next to what each one is worth. A value earns its place when it kills one of those goals or changes the number in it, and that is a thing you can watch happen. Reading a written-down quarter against three value sentences takes about ten minutes, which makes it the cheapest review in the calendar: see goal setting for small teams →
Where core values sit next to the mission and the vision
Values answer a different question than the two sentences people usually confuse them with. The mission says why the company exists, the vision says where it is going, and the values say how you behave on the way, especially when behaving costs money. If you are not sure which of the three you are writing, start with the difference between a mission and a vision, then use mission statement examples for the sentence above this one.
Values also have a job further down. They are the first filter on the list of things you are about to commit to for the quarter, which is why they belong in the same room as company goals examples and the annual planning conversation, not only on the careers page.
What are core values?+
Core values are the small set of rules a company holds when keeping them costs something. Written usefully, each one names a behavior and the price of it, like “we say a deadline will slip the day we know, even when it costs us the renewal”. Written as single words such as integrity or excellence, they cannot settle a decision, which is why most published lists change nothing.
How many core values should a company have?+
Three to five. People quote what they remember, and a team can hold about four sentences well enough to use one in an argument. Longer lists give every decision a value that supports it, so none of them rule anything out.
What is the difference between core values and a mission statement?+
A mission statement says why the company exists and who it serves. Core values say how the company behaves while doing that, especially in the moments when the honest choice is the expensive one. One sentence points outward at customers, the other points inward at decisions.
What are good core values for a small company?+
The ones that describe how you already handle your hardest recurring decision, not the ones you admire. In a service business that is usually a rule about telling clients bad news early, one about which work you turn down, and one about who decides when the team disagrees. Start from a call you got wrong last year and write the sentence that would have stopped it.
Can core values change?+
Yes, and a value that has never been rewritten is usually one nobody uses. The honest trigger for a change is a decision where you broke the value on purpose and would do it again: that means the sentence was wrong, and it is better to fix it than to keep a rule the team has learned to ignore.