Comments on: How We Developed Our Business’s Core Values (And Why You Should Too)

By: Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 23:51:38 +0000

awesome article yall.. im writing my very first business plan (all my other side hustles never had such) and your site has taught me so much others didnt. Thank you. Im a motivational speaker and spiritual teacher – so I can see how my building a similar company for myself digging deep into my own values and those of my support team now.. is gonna be great. Thank you. LOOOVED the MARS story.. made SO MUCH SENSE! Huge helper! bravo. http://www.RevKevinLee.com

By: Vlad Alive

Vlad Alive — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 09:37:18 +0000

I think I will steal your core values! 🙂 so inspiring.

By: Whitebear

Whitebear — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:26:22 +0000

This really resonated with me. I’m reviewing our communications strategy at the moment, and the who and why of what we do what we do is something that stood out as being key – but were things that were only mentioned at the yearly strategy meetings etc.
We’re going to sit down and take a look at defining our own core values.
Thanks!

By: Chris Brisson

Chris Brisson — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 20:54:21 +0000

Love this Alex. We’ve been slowly building out our core values and refining it over the last few weeks and see how valuable it is for attracting great talent, creating a mission and goal for the team, and purpose.

Awesome idea for slack too – super ninja! 🙂

How are you using your core values in your huddles?

By: nah

nah — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 19:44:38 +0000

Loving the article, but please for the love of Google algorithm, do not use links that open in the same page like it did for the PDF of values. I closed it thinking that I would close only it to find out I left the page. Irritating and some readers might not come back to the content again mind you.

By: ensignavenger

ensignavenger — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 18:52:58 +0000

A post on how you use/apply the core values would be helpful. One thing you mentioned was using them when hiring. Because you selected core values that reflect your current team, I worry that this might lead to hiring more people that are just like the ones you already have, and developing a team that lacks true diversity. Maybe diversity is something you aren’t too concerned about, it does seem to be a trendy buzzword these days- but I see great value in having a diverse team that approaches problems from different mental models.

Many companies use ‘culture fit’ as a reason to only hire people they think fit into the “good ‘ole boys club”. Do you have any concerns about that mentality at Groove?

By: Erik Jacobson

Erik Jacobson — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:47:32 +0000

Great post, Alex! Hadn’t heard of the “Exercise to Mars.” Extremely helpful to have a framework like that for the ambiguous process of defining core values.

By: Yves Riel

Yves Riel — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:34:29 +0000

Hi Alex,

It made me smile at the beginning when I read your first impressions about core values. I too witnessed core values constantly being mentioned by the CEO and plastered all over the walls of a 5000+ employees company. The funny part is that the management team never really acted along them and were often blatantly doing the opposite. Just like you said, core values are real when they are at the core of what you do every day and it starts with the CEO following them. Congrats for doing just that!

I have been following you for a while now and really find values in your blog posts. Since a core value can also be about how a company treats their employees, I would like to ask you a small question. I have left my jobs a few months ago to found my own bootstrapped company. I have built a MVP and currently trying to figure out product/market fit. I am leaning toward building a distributed team like Groove but there is something that I have in the back on my mind which I cannot easily find an answer to.

When I will hire employees, my goal is to offer them proper benefits. I know what I would have to do in my country but what about in other countries. I see that you have employees in Australia, Russia, Scotland, Poland, etc. Do you offer the same benefits in all countries? Do you offer health benefits to all of them? And when you started with your first employee, did you already offer such benefits.

That could be a question for the Friday Q&A? I don’t want to waste your time but I would really appreciate a quick answer to that question. This is a question that has been bugging me lately as I am trying to look into hiring a first employee to help out with the development of our app.

Thanks a lot!

By: Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:02:05 +0000

Two questions:

1) You mention how defining your core values helped with when hiring, but has it directly helped your brand? e.g. I’m thinking of businesses like The Body Shop whose explicit core ethical values influence customers, or even an Apple, who we’d all presume include some version of “innovative” and “aesthetic” as core values.

2) With respect and the aforementioned in mind, your core values seem quite generic. (What business doesn’t value employees/co-workers who get shit done, are self-motivated, and aim to keep things simple?) How important was it to define values that capture Groove’s uniqueness, e.g. in order to attract and retain unique talent?