Top & Toxic Test: Do Your Core Values Accurately Reflect the Culture of Your Company?

Core val­ues can be tricky. When I first got involved in strate­gic plan­ning almost 30 years ago, I used to think they were fluff, cre­at­ed by real­ly car­ing HR peo­ple. Was I wrong!

Over the years, I’ve found that core val­ues under­pin a cul­ture and are a more impact­ful strate­gic tool than I’d ever imag­ined. After work­ing with dozens and dozens of com­pa­nies, I know they can define and enhance cul­ture and cre­ate a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. How­ev­er, I’ve found that core val­ues often under­per­form because they are either not crisp enough or tru­ly reflect of the cul­ture of the company.

Last week, I had a dis­cus­sion with a CEO, who was in the mid­dle of a process to reset the company’s core val­ues, about how to val­i­date them. While there’s a whole process to get the right data on the table and to get them right, it’s crit­i­cal to pres­sure test them to make sure you’re not wast­ing your time.

I call it the Top and Tox­ic Test:

1. List your top A+ Play­ers who are a great fit, con­sis­tent­ly gen­er­ate A‑grade results and exem­pli­fy your core val­ues. If they all rate at least an A on every one, your core val­ues are right.
2. List your tox­ic five: his­tor­i­cal high per­form­ers who cre­at­ed headaches, dra­ma, frus­tra­tion and fric­tion in the sys­tem. Those who, when leav­ing the orga­ni­za­tion (and hope­ful­ly, they have already gone), left peo­ple sigh­ing with relief or qui­et­ly applaud­ing. Each of them should notably fail or vio­late at least two of your core val­ues, scor­ing sev­en or less on a 0 to 10 scale.

This exer­cise fil­ters your amaz­ing peo­ple and tox­ic peo­ple and helps you to make bet­ter deci­sions about who comes in and who gets to stay.

By the way, if you still have tox­ic play­ers in your orga­ni­za­tion, maybe you should call a spe­cial meet­ing with their man­ag­er to ensure they know that they’re tox­ic and what they need to do to be a healthy mem­ber of your high-per­form­ing team.

The Chal­lenge

• If you’re not sure if your core val­ues are right, do the Top and Tox­ic Test.

If you need help fig­ur­ing out if your core val­ues are right – or what you can do with Toxic

A Play­ers – please let us know. Our team has worked with many orga­ni­za­tions, both new and well-estab­lished, to reset their vision and core values.

Addi­tion­al Podcasts

Is Your Cor­po­rate Cul­ture Real­ly Aligned with Your Core Values?

How to Iden­ti­fy A Play­ers in an Interview

How to Deal with An Under­per­form­ing Executive

Addi­tion­al Blogs

Core Val­ues as a Safe­ty Issue

The Issue with Com­pa­ny Core Values

Tox­ic A Play­ers: What to do with Bril­liant Jerks

The Hid­den Costs of Not Hav­ing a Team of A Players

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