Even Steve Jobs Used the Phrase “Core Values”

One of the best things about a startup, or any company for that matter, is that it can be a little utopia where you get a chance to do things differently. You can fix the things you disliked or thought were broken at other places you’ve worked or patronized. And, the best way to articulate your thoughts on how to do things better is by defining and sharing your company’s “core values.”

It’s really difficult to talk about your company’s “mission” or “core values” without sounding like one of those cheesy corporate motivation posters from the 90s. But, whether it’s in the form of a commercial, a mission statement on your website, a series of blog posts, a well-written employee handbook, or even a book, every great company articulates their beliefs and shares them with the world. They take a stance. Even Steve Jobs used the phrase “core values.”

When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, and the first thing he did was return the company to its roots. In one of his early meetings with management he said:

To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world. And, we’re not gonna get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.

Now Apple, fortunately, is one of the half-a-dozen best brands in the whole world. Right up there with Nike, Disney, Coke, Sony. It is one of the greats of the greats. Not just in the country, but all around the globe. But even a great brand needs investment and caring if it’s gonna retain its relevance and vitality. The Apple brand has clearly suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years. And we’re gonna bring it back.

The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and feeds. Is not to talk about mips and megahertz. Not to talk about why we’re better than Windows. The dairy industry tried for twenty years to convince you that milk is good for you. It’s a lie, but they tried anyway. The sales were going like this. [Makes a downward gesture.] And then they tried “Got Milk” and the sales are going like this. [Makes an upward gesture.] “Got Milk” doesn’t even talk about the product. As a matter of fact it focuses on the absence of the product.

But, the best example of all, and one of the greatest jobs of marketing that the universe has ever seen is Nike. Remember, Nike sells a commodity! They sell shoes. And yet, when you think of Nike, you feel something different than a shoe company. In their ads, as you know, they don’t ever talk about the products. They don’t ever tell you about the products and why their air soles are better than Reebok’s air soles. What does Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes, and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are. That’s what they are about.

Apple spends a fortune on advertising. You would never know it. [Laughs]. You’d never know it. When I got here Apple had just fired their agency. They were doing a competition with twenty-three agencies, and four years from now they’d pick one. We blew that up and we hired Chiat\Day, the ad agency that I was fortunate enough to work with years ago. We created some award-winning work, including the best ad ever made in 1984, by advertising professionals.

And we started working about eight weeks ago. And the question we asked was, “Our customers wanna know who is Apple, and what is it that we stand for?” Where do we fit in this world?

What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done. Although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody in some cases. But Apple’s about something more than that.

Apple at its core, it’s core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world. That’s what we believe. And we’ve had the opportunity to work with people like that. We’ve had the opportunity to work with people like you, with software developers, with customers who have done it. In some big and some small ways. And we believe that in this world, people can change it for the better. And that those people that are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that actually do.

And so what we’re going to do in our first brand marketing campaign in several years is to get back to that core value.

A Simple Way to Define Your Core Values

So now that you’ve got ideas on what your company stands for and how to do things better, you’re ready to compile your thoughts into a set of core values. Here’s a simple process for doing that:

1. Take thirty minutes to an hour and just start listing everything that you believe about how to work, and how an ideal workplace looks. Pretend you’re an outsider visiting a company that has reached workplace nirvana. What are the habits? How does the organization function? What kind of language do they use? Don’t think critically or judge what comes out. Just brainstorm and list. One quick note: I don’t believe that this should be a democratic process. As the company evolves and learns, you should look critically at these values and change them if needed. This critical evaluation is a great place to bring your team into the process, but the initial process of defining what you what your company to be should not be conducted by committee.
2. Once you’ve got a big list, you’ll notice that a lot of items on your list are related. Start grouping them by topic.
3. Give these groups a name. At Original Fuzz, all of our ideas about how we should work end up falling into three categories: sustainability, creativity, and doing great work.
4. Refine these categories. Some ideas you’ve listed might be redundant. Combine them. Get rid of the ones that aren’t essential. Get rid of the items that you don’t really live up to. Get rid of the ones that are too vague to have meaning, such as “We value people.” A good rule of thumb is the idea from the scientific method that your hypothesis should be falsifiable. If a reasonable person couldn’t come up with a decent argument for why one of your values is a bad idea, then it’s probably too vague.
5. Provide one or two brief examples of how your company practices these values on a regular basis.
6. That’s it. Plant your flag. Share these with your team, your stakeholders, and your customers.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be discussing each of our values individually on this blog and then sharing how these ideas are being incorporated into a redesign of our website. If you’d like to follow along, sign up here, and we’ll send you a brief email to let you know there’s a new post. We usually send about one every week or so. Please share your feedback! We’re always looking for ways to improve our processes and ideas.

Original Fuzz /// Trusted gear for creativity.

We believe that it’s not just what you do, but how you do it. Creativity is a daily practice of doing the work that only you can do, and the tools you use matter. That’s why we’re constantly improving the gear you rely on when inspiration strikes. Our guitar straps & camera straps are just the beginning.

#makeityou