Core Values

Core values are the few principles a person or organisation uses to decide what to do, and keeps even when keeping them costs something. "Core" means they do not change with the market, the mood or the reward. Enduring companies hold them as a small set of timeless guiding principles that need no external justification (Harvard Business Review, 1996). The same test fits a company, a team and a person, so "personal core values" and "company core values" are one idea.

A goal is something you reach; a value is something you keep doing after you have reached it. Norms and practices are the habits and methods that express a value, and they can change when the situation does. Harvard Business Review's 1996 study found that none of the visionary companies it studied had more than five core values, and it warns against confusing values with operating practices, business strategies or cultural norms. If your list runs past five, you are probably mixing values with practices. Purpose is different again: it is why you work, and values are how you behave while pursuing it. The entries on purpose, passion and profit and how to find your purpose cover that side.

No. The same words appear on very different companies' lists, so a value is shown by what it costs, not by what it says. In October 2026 the published values of five large Indian companies (Tata Group, Wipro, Infosys, Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro) were read and counted: 27 values in total, four to seven per company, median five.

Four of the five name integrity, four name the customer or client, and three name excellence. Reliance and Larsen & Toubro go past five. Enron's 2000 annual report lists Communication, Respect, Integrity and Excellence, and three of those words sit on the lists above. Five companies is a small sample, so treat it as an illustration, not a market average.

Two companies can hold the same values, so the words cannot be your proof. Belief is also thin: Gallup's 2016 survey found 27% of US employees strongly agree they believe in their organisation's values and 23% that they can apply them to their work every day, figures Gallup repeated in 2022.

A value is core if it passes five tests: you would keep it at a cost, hold it without reward, can name a decision it changed, can name what it makes you refuse, and live it now. Write up to seven candidate values and run each through these five questions. Keep only those that pass all five. Questions 1, 2 and 5 adapt the test in the 1996 Harvard Business Review study; questions 3 and 4 are recommended additions.

Five questions a core value must pass

1. Would you keep it if it cost you?

If circumstances changed and penalised you for holding this value, would you still keep it? Pass: you can name the client, the rupee amount or the deadline you have already given up, or would give up, for it. Fail: you cannot name anything you have given up or would give up.

2. Would you hold it if nobody rewarded it?

Pass: you can name a time you acted on it with nobody watching and no reward. Fail: you can only point to cases where it also helped sales.

3. Which decision did it change, in the last 12 months or the last time it was under pressure?

Pass: you can name the decision and what you did differently. Fail: you cannot name any decision, or only decisions where the value cost nothing.

4. What does it make you refuse?

Pass: a specific no. Fail: nothing could ever breach it. "Honesty" fails. "Tell a client when the scope they asked for will not fix their problem, even if it loses the project" passes.

5. Do you do it now, or do you wish you did?

Pass: it describes current behaviour. Fail: it is an aspiration, so move it to your goals. Ask which values you truly hold, never which you should hold.

Fill one row per survivor. Example row, for an invented consultant:

Values are what you keep, purpose is why you work, and both shape what you say about yourself. Once three to five values pass, they are raw material for a personal brand statement. They are easier to name if you can see how you actually behave.

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