Creating Company Core Values: The Operator's Guide to Values That Actually Run the Business
Most home service companies have core values nobody can quote and nobody follows. That's because the values were written by a consultant, hung on a wall, and forgotten. Here's how to write values your team actually uses to make decisions when you're not in the room.
title: "Creating Company Core Values: The Operator's Guide to Values That Actually Run the Business" slug: "creating-company-core-values" date: "2026-05-31" author: "Justin Hubbard" category: "Leadership" tags: ["core values", "company culture", "small business leadership", "home services operations", "hiring"] excerpt: "Most home service companies have core values nobody can quote and nobody follows. That's because the values were written by a consultant, hung on a wall, and forgotten. Here's how to write values your team actually uses to make decisions when you're not in the room." description: "A home service operator's step-by-step playbook for creating company core values that drive real hiring, firing, and customer-service decisions — not laminated wall art." ogImage: "/writing-covers/creating-company-core-values.jpg" canonical: "https://adimize.com/writing/creating-company-core-values" piece_id: "P-040" published: true
Most home service companies have core values nobody can quote and nobody follows.
Open the door of any service business and ask three random employees to name the company's values. You'll get blank stares, a guess at one of them, or a sheepish admission that they're "on a poster in the breakroom somewhere." That's not a values problem — that's a wrote-them-wrong problem.
Real values aren't aspirational corporate-speak. They're decision-making tools. The whole point is that when you, the owner, aren't in the room — when a dispatcher is deciding whether to refund a customer, when a tech is deciding whether to upsell, when a manager is deciding whether to fire someone — the values give them the answer.
If your values aren't doing that work, they're not values. They're wall art.
- Stop letting a consultant write values you'd never actually enforce.
- Stop putting "integrity" on the list because every other business does.
- Stop hiring people who fail the values test because they're skilled.
- Stop firing people for "fit" without ever telling them what fit meant.
This is the operator's playbook for creating company core values — how to write them so they actually drive decisions, how to test them before they go live, and how to keep them alive past the first quarter.
For the foundational leadership framework, see Delegation for small business growth.
What Real Values Are (And Aren't)
A real core value is a non-negotiable decision filter. It tells anyone in the company how to choose when two reasonable options are on the table.
A fake core value is a feel-good adjective that no one would ever argue against.
Quick test — read the value out loud, then ask: "Could the opposite of this also be a legitimate company value at some business?"
- "Integrity" → opposite is "dishonesty." No reasonable business picks dishonesty. So "integrity" is table stakes, not a differentiator.
- "Respond fast — silence is the worst answer" → opposite is "respond carefully even if it takes longer." Some businesses legitimately do that. So fast response is a real choice.
The first kind isn't a value. The second kind is.
The values that actually run a business are the ones where you could imagine a real, competent operator picking the other answer — and you've decided that's not who you are.
Step 1: Identify the Decisions Your Values Need to Drive
Start at the wrong end of the problem. Most operators start with "what do we believe?" — that produces vague aspirations. Start instead with "what decisions does my team make every day that I want them to make consistently when I'm not there?"
A handful of common ones in home services:
- How fast do we call back a new lead?
- When a customer is upset, what's our first move?
- Do we recommend the cheapest option or the right one?
- Do we hire for skill or for fit?
- How do we handle a teammate who's underperforming?
- Do we say no to a job that doesn't match our model?
Each of those questions is where values do real work. If you can't tell me what decision a value should drive, you don't need that value yet.
Step 2: Write Values as Sentences, Not Words
The single biggest upgrade most operators can make. Replace single-word values with full-sentence values that actually say something.
Weak: Integrity. Strong: We tell customers the truth even when it costs us the job.
Weak: Excellence. Strong: The last 5% of a job is what people remember — we don't leave until it's right.
Weak: Teamwork. Strong: Nobody on this team carries a heavy load alone — you ask for help and you give help.
Sentence-form values are harder to forget, harder to misinterpret, and harder to fake. They also make hiring, firing, and coaching decisions much cleaner.
Step 3: Pull Input From the Team
You're not writing in a vacuum. The people who do the work see patterns you don't. Two real questions to ask:
1. "When have you seen us at our best?" The answers usually surface what the team is already proud of — and those moments often map to live, working values you didn't realize you had.
2. "When have you seen us at our worst, or seen us inconsistent?" This surfaces where the company's implicit values are unclear or contradicted. That's where written values do the most good.
Don't put this to a vote. Values aren't democratic — the owner sets the company's identity. But the team's input sharpens the words and surfaces real situations the values will need to handle.
Step 4: Pressure-Test Each Value With a Real Example
Before locking a value in, run it through the firing test and the hiring test.
Firing test: "Would I fire a top performer for repeatedly violating this value?" If the answer is no, this value isn't actually a value — it's a preference. Drop it or strengthen it until the answer becomes yes.
Hiring test: "Would I pass on a more qualified candidate because they failed this value?" Same logic. If you wouldn't, you don't actually hold this value as non-negotiable yet.
The values that survive both tests are real. Everything else gets cut.
Step 5: Make Them Run the Business
Writing values is the easy 10%. The 90% is operationalizing them.
In hiring. Every interview includes 2-3 questions per value designed to surface whether the candidate naturally lives them. Same questions for every candidate. Score them, not vibes.
In onboarding. Day-one orientation covers each value with a real example — not a poster reading. The new hire sees stories of how the value was lived (and how it was violated and corrected).
In performance reviews. Half the review is what got done (the scoreboard). Half is how it got done (the values). A high performer who violates values gets coached. If it persists, they get fired — and the rest of the team sees you mean it.
In customer escalations. The decision tree for handling unhappy customers explicitly references the relevant value. When someone has to make a $300 refund call, the value answers it.
In team meetings. Once a week, someone calls out a moment when a teammate lived a value. Specific. Recent. Real. That's the recognition loop that makes values stick.
Step 6: Review Annually — Not Constantly
Values shouldn't churn quarterly. They're load-bearing. But once a year, sit down and ask:
- Is each value still alive in our hiring, firing, and customer decisions?
- Has the business outgrown any value, or grown into one we need to add?
- Are we tolerating violations of a value? If so, fix the tolerance, not the value.
If you change values more than once a year, they're not values yet. They're rough drafts.
👉 Schedule the values audit on the calendar — same week every year. Tie it to your annual planning cycle.
The Common Failure Modes
The way most values rollouts die:
Too many values. Five to seven is the right number. Twelve is a memorization problem nobody solves.
Generic and uninspectable. "We have integrity" can't be coached or fired on. "We tell customers the truth even when it costs the job" can be.
Owner doesn't live them. The fastest way to kill values is for the owner to violate them publicly and act like nothing happened. Either live them or take them down.
Written by an outsider. A consultant can facilitate. A consultant can't decide who you are. If the values feel like they belong to somebody else's company, they probably do.
The Bottom Line
Values aren't decoration. They're the decision-making layer of your business when you're not personally in the room. Most operators carry around vague, generic, unenforced values that have no operational weight and then complain that the team doesn't make good decisions.
Five to seven values. Written as full sentences. Pressure-tested against real hiring and firing scenarios. Operationalized in every people decision. Reviewed annually, not constantly.
Do that, and the team starts making the calls you'd make — even when you're nowhere near the truck.
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