Core Valuescontemplativechristian / Foter / CC BY-SA

We had our annual Vistage CEO Summits this week, and the speakers emphasized an important point about evaluating the people on your team. Both Alex Freytag and Tom Bouwer of Profit Works emphasized the importance of alignment with core values. Most leaders do a pretty good job of evaluating people for performance. If you have an employee who is consistently not performing, it’s usually a pretty easy decision to let them go.

It can be a harder decision when the performance is good, but the person’s core values do not align with the company’s core values. Let’s say that one of your core values is Integrity, and the behavior expected with that core value is to do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it. Let’s also say that one of your best sales people never does what they say they are going to do. They make commitments that they never keep. Their performance (measured in sales results) is good, but there is no alignment with one of your key core values. What do you do?

If you truly believe in the importance of core values, you must address the issue with the sales person. If you do not address their behavior, you have just sent a message to the organization that your core values are not important. You have effectively given everyone permission to violate all of your core values, because they apparently do not matter. Does that message create the culture you want?

What if instead, you address the behavior with the sales person and try to work with them to behave in the manner you expect? Sometimes, that’s all that is needed to motivate change. If not, then you may need to part ways with the person. If the rest of the organization understands how serious you are about your core values, good things will happen. Those who are not comfortable being held accountable to those behaviors will often leave their own. Those who exemplify those core values will thrive and be even more excited about working for your company.

Please consider clearly defining your core values and associated behaviors, and then evaluating your employees on alignment with those core values as well as performance.