Missions and core values are ubiquitous at companies today. They're expected — by employees, new recruits, even investors — because they take a stand on the company's purpose and path to get there.
You need both because one without the other isn't enough. A mission is the purpose of the company, its north star, its reason for existing, whereas core values are how you fulfill that purpose, the set of navigational tools in service to your mission that are more useful for immediate, near-term decisions. They're a code of conduct, a common language, guiding principles, shorthand for new employees, partners and outsiders to understand how your company operates.
<p>But you can't establish both your mission and core values simultaneously. While a mission is often the inspiration for the company itself and can be simply declared as the destination, core values are trickier. To last, and to be effective, core values need to be an authentic reflection of your company, your people and your culture; core values take more self awareness on behalf of the company than a mission. </p>
<p>A question I often get from founders is how and when to introduce core values, specifically: How do you identify what matters to your company in a unique way, and when do you really know? How do you get employees to understand, embrace and act according to these values? And, do you have to keep the same values forever? Here are five pieces of advice for establishing core values at a startup, or even revisiting values at a young and growing company: </p>
<h2>1. Wait, Watch and Learn. </h2><p>Companies are living entities full of forces, personalities, pressures and motivators. Just like people and relationships, the combination of these things produces something unique that drives it forward — and that something takes time to emerge. Even if you have a pretty good idea of who you are already, I always advise founders to wait to formally establish your values until you reach five to 10 employees and the company has been formed for a few months, but is still a couple months ahead of your first product launch. Observe how you make decisions together amid your different forces and personalities at play; this is probably the strongest signal of what your culture authentically is at its core (hence, "core values"). You can always make your values partly aspirational, but to make them stick you must also root them in reality. </p>
<h2>2. Tie Your Values to Your Product. </h2><p>Since core values are a guide to your every day, it's incredibly helpful if they tie to what you're building every day. The best example I have for this is from Zillow, where a core value is Turn on the Lights. Zillow was the company that brought real estate information out of the dark and into the light for consumers. While this innovation has now become an expectation among consumers, the core value of Turn on the Lights continues to keep empowerment front and center as the company matures and evolves. So at Zillow, the core value "Turn On The Lights" means that people are meant to be transparent with each other internally, but also that the product is supposed to provide real estate transparency to its users.</p>
<p>A more recent example is from my latest startup, Pacaso, where we have the value of "Empty the dishwasher: When you encounter an unmet need, step up and own it." Pacaso's service creates fractional vacation home ownership — in other words, owning a quarter of a second home rather than the whole thing, making it more affordable, accessible and practical for many more people. The core value of "Empty the Dishwasher" means that no job is beneath any individual employee. But it is also a nod to the product itself, since "emptying the dishwasher" is the ultimate act of teamwork inside one's household. </p>
<h2>3. Be Prescriptive and Memorable. </h2><p>Try to avoid corporate jargon and overarching words that are meaningless without context. In gathering my thoughts for this piece, I came across <a href="https://hbr.org/2002/07/make-your-values-mean-something" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">an article</a> in Harvard Business Review and learned that the values "communication", "respect", "integrity" and "excellence" were all values of Enron — a company that committed one of the biggest accounting frauds in history. Clearly these words weren't prescriptive or memorable enough to keep the company on the right path. </p>
<p>If integrity is a core value, define what you mean by integrity, and make it something you'd say every day. My favorite example is from Box: "Make Mom Proud." This value is all about creating an environment of safety and trust where people's voices are heard and employees do right by one another. It's not corporate speak; it's pithy, playful and a clear reflection of their culture while also saying something specific about the way employees collaborate at Box.</p>
<h2>4. Tie Core Values into Your Operations. </h2><p>To truly live your core values, they need to be part of your existence at the company; you can't just print them on a poster and expect them to be followed. Your values should be part of how people join, operate within and sometimes exit your company. </p>
<p>Interview and evaluate candidates based on your company's core values, and even better, create standard questions for your interviewers to ask based on your values. This not only reinforces what the company is looking for, it also helps fight unconscious bias. Structure employee recognition around your core values for awards and announcements. Evaluate employee performance — including annual reviews, feedback loops and compensation — around your core values. At Zillow, core values were equally rated to outcomes in our annual reviews, which means you couldn't be an all-star and a jerk and be rewarded for it. </p>
<h2>5. Revisit Your Values, and Amend Them Accordingly. </h2><p>Like the Constitution, you need to be able to amend your core values — infrequently, but regularly. Why? Because things change. You grow. You acquire companies that have their own values. You evolve your business model. At Zillow, changes like these prompted changes in our values. When we acquired Trulia, we added the value "Act with Integrity," which was a core value of theirs but not part of Zillow's, yet critically important as once-fierce competitors became colleagues with shared objectives. When we expanded into buying and selling homes with Zillow Offers, we added a value around operational rigor and excellence, since new factors like time on market and closing deals quickly became critically important to the success of the business. Yes, you are creating core values, but sometimes your core changes as you mature, and you must consciously account for that every few years. </p>
<p>Core Values are a critically important part of a well-run company. But, like so many aspects of a company's culture, to make core values truly come alive takes effort. When well executed, they can contribute immeasurably to your company's success.</p>
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Siddarth Pandiya, the 20-year-old founder of Sike Insights, likes to say he was into remote work before remote work was cool.
He founded Sike Insights from his dorm in October 2019 with Andrew Zhou and Corine Tan, two fellow UCLA students. The three had made several different projects at hackathons and in the entrepreneurship fraternity Sigma Eta Pi before scrapping them all entirely and creating the artificial intelligence platform aimed at managers trying to stay in tune with remote workers.
<p>
"Making baby leaders," as he puts it, "more emotionally intelligent was kind of like the thing that I've always cared about, and after we got to work, we found our calling was easy," he said.
</p><p>
The company has just closed a $1 million pre-seed round with backing from Kleiner Perkins, Abe Burns,<em> </em>dot.LA co-founder Spencer Rascoff, Jeff Wilke, The Fund, Overton VC, MiLA Capital and Rough Draft Ventures.
</p><p>
Pandiya, who started his first company at 15 years old, came up with the idea based on his experiences on his high school debate team, where building a culture and cohesiveness could be the difference between winning and losing.
</p><p>
He knew businesses faced the same problem and wanted to create more sensitive companies.
</p><p>
"Especially in our generation, we would rather be unemployed than work at a company where we don't feel like we're cared for right," said Pandiya.
</p><h2>Work from Home Realities</h2><p>
There's a lot of technology already out there to help with asynchronous working — Asana, Trello, Slack and Monday all assist with remote team goal setting and communication. But what Pandiya noticed was missing was building a company culture.
</p><p>
"Culture is now a must-have for remote companies, as opposed to 10 years ago when culture was kind of seen as this wishy-washy thing and it was more like, 'Okay, suck it up and do your job even if you hate it'," he said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-16x9">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg5MTczNy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMjYwMTU4NX0.q3MdxaLsgLU_zr1h6bqQk0aubPV9_gKkuURZj1YYCss/image.png?width=1245&coordinates=45%2C69%2C45%2C69&height=700" id="ec7f2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d22f16b14f874a4039c0fabd33ee0e92" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt=" Siddarth Pandiya, Corine Tan and Andrew Zhou are the co-founders of Sike Insights." />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..."> Siddarth Pandiya, Corine Tan and Andrew Zhou are the co-founders of Sike Insights.</small>
</p><p>
There is no way for employees to interface with their managers or each other at the same volume they could while at work, according to Pandiya. Co-workers can no longer stop by each others' desks and chat about their weekends or their projects. Sensitive conversations are harder without body language.<br/>
</p><p>
"Startups like Sike, that empower high levels of engagement within teams, have the potential to add a lot of value," said Jonathon Ruane, a professor of global economics and management at MIT. He said research indicates that the share of working days spent at home by full-time workers will triple after the pandemic.
</p><p>
"Managers will need to adapt to managing and leading teams remotely. Many are likely to adopt new technologies that support this," Ruane said.
</p><p>
Sike Insights' first product is a friendly dog named Kona. It's an artificial intelligence bot integrated into Slack who facilitates interactions with employees and managers by making suggestions about how to respond during different conversations.<br/>
</p><p>
Kona first gathers employee data from a self-reported survey about their personality types. It continues to monitor employees' Slack activity to build a profile of each persons' working style and make suggestions to their managers on how best to clarify tasks or deliver feedback.
</p><p>
At the start of the day, employees respond to a question from Kona: "How are you feeling today?" They can respond with a color and an explanation of their feelings. Not every status is related to work — teammates can share other happenings in their lives and better get to know each other despite not having in-person interactions.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg5MTc3MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MjIzNzQxNn0.BidWOaitQmz-isbj5NB_fq_MC3bfA2FEsjq9XyxYGuk/img.png?width=980" id="63c5e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="11557e34bbdb2f532b78fbe97a8a7870" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="kona sike insights" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Sike Insights' first product is a bot in the form of a dog named Kona.</small>
</p><h2>A Test Case</h2><p>
TeamSnap, a sports organizing platform, was one of the beta testers for Kona. Their engineering team had daily stand-ups, weekly one-on-ones, and twice-a-week all-hands meetings. Shane Emmons, TeamSnap's chief technology officer, realized that these meetings consisted largely of small-talk because his team wanted to better know each other.
</p><p>
With Kona, they drastically cut down on meetings.
</p><p>
"Clicking an emoji each morning created some big changes in how we take care of each other," Emmons said. Emmons began spending less time asking his team how they were feeling, and was able to spend his time helping them grow. After two months, the team eliminated daily stand ups and made one-on-one meetings biweekly.
</p><p>
"You can't walk around the office in a remote setting, so Kona acts like my sixth sense. I can see my distributed team's emotional health in a way that I couldn't before," Emmons said. "People naturally check on each other and start casual conversations. It's all from taking a simple 30-second pulse each morning."
</p><p>
The last service Kona provides are daily insights that are relayed to managers and teams as Slack prompts. Each tip or reflection was developed with the help of top executive coaches, some of whom are investors, such as Robyn Ward and Jeff Gray.
</p><p>
"We're really the only company, the only tool that has real data on the culture of your company right now," said Pandiya. "And that's obviously really powerful in and of itself as an analytics platform. But what we have even beyond that is we are really the only tool that can help you manifest the culture that you want to create in your company."
</p><p><em>Editor's note: This story has been updated.</em><em></em></p>
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I've always hated annual reviews. That's not an encouraging start to giving advice, I know, but it's my reality, and unfortunately it's all too common. So why do so many of us loathe annual reviews?
For starters, they take too long. At all of my previous companies, we would spend at least three months on the process, from individual reviews to manager feedback to compensation and promotion approvals. The annual review conversation has also never been very useful outside of inducing anxiety at the end of the year; Due to its infrequency, the ups and downs of the year aren't accounted for, and we learn very little as managers and employees as a result. Topping it off, annual reviews have historically just been about performance, leaving a critical piece — employee engagement — unaddressed in the most influential evaluations throughout an employee's career.
<p>Leaders and technology providers are grappling with how to solve these challenges now that company culture and employee engagement are widely accepted as performance drivers. We now know through data that business success is no longer just about "human engineering," or how we deploy our workforce effectively; it's now also about whether people are motivated and driven by the mission and culture. And, critically, success comes down to how these two pieces intersect to drive success forward. </p><p>To make annual reviews worthwhile and valuable to both managers and employees, we need to re-engineer the process. Your approach will be company and culture-specific, and in fact, mine has changed with each company I've founded, but focusing on these three areas will help guide a modern approach: </p><h3>Check in Frequently with Two-Way Feedback
</h3><p>Having a review once a year sets both the employee and manager up for failure. So much happens within that time span, particularly at high-growth companies, and if you only talk about performance and engagement once a year you are leaving so many success-driving opportunities on the table. In fact, abandon the term "annual review" entirely. </p><p>Instead, focus on frequency. Conduct weekly 1:1 meetings to cover tactical work and ways in which managers can remove roadblocks, use quarterly check-ins to assess the overall state of employee engagement and have slightly longer check-ins every six months that focus on bigger picture performance as well as engagement topics like quality of work, delivery, collaboration, connecting to the mission and career development. Frequency ensures the end of year conversation — often the hardest one because it dictates promotions and compensation — will not come as a surprise. </p><p>Equally important, make sure these conversations or check-ins incorporate 360° feedback, anonymously and through technology so the employee feels empowered and safe to share honestly. It's just as critical for the employee to share what the manager can do to help drive performance and engagement as it is for the manager to provide feedback to the employee. This was something we did well at Zillow, and our implementation of 360° feedback ended up producing great insights that led to successful leadership training programs and artifacts like the "leadership playbook," a guide of principles that became words to live by similar to our core values.</p><h3>Be intentional with Time and Topics</h3><p>Help your teams keep the process manageable by providing specific guidance through time-boxing, ie. self evaluations should take no longer than 30 minutes, 360° feedback should take no more than 5 minutes per leader and manager feedback should take no more than 30 minutes per direct report. It's easy to get carried away, especially on the employee's side, when they know their evaluation is tied to their compensation. Time-boxing helps avoid this.</p><p>Focusing your topics is equally important, particularly when it comes to compensation. Limit conversations about compensation to once a year (because that's typically the only time you can do anything about it), and separate compensation discussions from those about performance, if only by a few days. This ensures employees hear both critical pieces; if you combine the two, they'll only pay attention to the numbers. </p><h3>Invest in an HR Platform
</h3><p>Everything I've recommended thus far can be made better, less biased and more efficient with HR technology. But understanding engagement is where this space is getting really exciting and game-changing for companies, because as we lose cultural artifacts we've relied on, such as office environments, other aspects of our culture like how we communicate and how we make decisions shine brighter and have a greater influence on engagement. </p><p>At my latest startup, Pacaso, we use <a href="https://officevibe.com/" target="_blank">Officevibe</a> to conduct weekly pulse checks of our virtual workforce, and these help us assess in real-time whether our employees are inspired by and mapping to the mission, understanding their role and feeling represented and supported by their manager and the company. It gives us actionable information to keep us on the right path.</p><p>Pulse checks are just one piece of the puzzle. <a href="https://www.cultureamp.com/" target="_blank">CultureAmp</a>, for example, provides insights on peer feedback and company-wide performance reviews that help combat bias and support representation. <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/" target="_blank">Qualtrics</a> links regular engagement and pulse survey results with milestones like promotions, role changes and returning from parental leave — all at the company level to protect the individual employees but help the manager navigate performance and engagement needs. <a href="https://www.allvoices.co/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AllVoices</a> (in which I'm an investor) provides an anonymous, direct line from employees to leadership to report bullying, harassment, bias or other cultural concerns with the goal of creating safer, more inclusive companies. There is so much we can do with technology to connect performance and engagement and just create better workplaces in general. HR platforms are quickly becoming a critical investment for companies. </p><p><em>Spencer Rascoff is the co-founder of dot.LA, Zillow and Hotwire, as well as the recent proptech startup <a href="https://dot.la/proptech-startup-pacaso-raises-17m-to-make-it-easier-to-own-a-second-home-2647880750.html" target="_self">Pacaso</a>. He was CEO of Zillow for 10 years. He is a sponsor of </em><em>Supernova Partners Acquisition Company, a special purpose acquisition company. Do you have a founder question? <a href="https://forms.gle/A55bfiSTwCpqokpM9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Let him know here</a>!</em><br/></p>
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