Core Values: Guiding Light or Empty Promise?

I was catching up on my Associations Now reading today and came across a great piece in the August ’10 issue that really hit home for me.  In the “CEO to CEO” feature, they asked CEO’s to expand on the core values of their association.  The answers are admirable.  Integrity, Innovation, Commitment, Honesty and so forth.  I particularly liked James R. Mitchell’s perspective from Ohio Independent Auto Dealers Association:

“All members now know and understand our new mantra–individually we struggle to be heard; collectively we cannot be ignored.“

What a concise, but powerful guiding principal for his association (and many others for that matter).

This article made me think of my experience thus far working at DAXKO.  When I joined the company last year, I learned about our 3 core values in my orientation:

• Integrity without compromise
• Synergistic teamwork
• Sense of ownership

Based on my experience at other companies, I thought that orientation might be the last time I heard about our core values as well.  Or even worse, that they would be lurking on some cheesy corporate inspirational poster in a conference room.

I’m proud to say that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Our core values truly guide everything that we do here at DAXKO.  Team members are hired based on their personification of these values, our performance is reviewed regularly with how well we embody them throughout our daily projects…the list goes on and on.  Our core values aren’t some empty promise that we slap up on a wall or our website to make ourselves feel better.  They guide us, day in and day out.

What about your organization?  Do your core values fall into the “guiding light” or the “empty promise” category?  Would your members agree with your answer?  In what ways do you ingrain your core values into your day to day business?