Why Guiding Behaviours Outperform Core Values Every Time

The Problem with Core Values in the Workplace

A lot of CEOs I work with are frustrated. They’ve done the “values exercise.” They’ve printed posters. They’ve got swag.

But their team is still misaligned. Still making inconsistent decisions. Still dragging their feet on what matters most.

What’s going on?

The problem is that values are inherently abstract. Ask ten people to define “accountability,” and you’ll get ten answers. Ask what it looks like when someone shows up accountable in a meeting, and now we’re getting somewhere.

That’s the difference.

Guiding behaviours bring clarity to strategy. They translate intentions into actions. They make it real.

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Guiding Behaviours Turn Strategy into Action

In healthy organizations, people don’t just share a vision—they know how to act on it.

That’s where guiding behaviours come in. They don’t replace values; they bring them to life. They answer the real question every employee is asking: “What do we do around here when things get messy, fast, or unclear?”

Instead of telling people to “embrace innovation,” guiding behaviours say:

“We try things before we’re 100% ready.”

That’s tangible. It gives permission. It defines a choice.

Or instead of saying “we’re collaborative,” guiding behaviours say:

“We speak up early if we see a disconnect.”

Or,

“We add ideas and options to opportunity, not reasons it can’t work.”

Now people have something to build on. And leaders have something to coach on.

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Real-World Example: The Software Firm That Couldn’t Decide

A growing Canadian software company had five beautifully worded core values: Innovation. Respect. Curiosity. Excellence. Teamwork.

They also had a pattern: every time the leadership team got close to a big decision, it bogged down. Everyone hedged. People wanted consensus, but no one wanted to go first.

The CEO was frustrated: “Why can’t my team make bold calls?”

They found the issue wasn’t their capability—it was clarity. They all said they valued “innovation,” but no one was clear on what that meant in a practical sense.

They worked to define a guiding behaviour that matched their strategy:

“We make the call when others hesitate.”

That one sentence shifted everything.

Now when a product manager delayed a feature rollout because “engineering wasn’t 100% sure,” the leadership team could point back to the behaviour: Are we living it, or not?

That shift took courage. But it was culture in action—not culture in theory.

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Real-World Example: The Co-op That Got Specific

Another example: a regional agricultural co-operative wanted to deepen its community presence and move faster in member services. But it kept tripping over its own internal process. Departments were polite but siloed. Hand-offs between teams were too slow. Everyone said they wanted “member-centricity,” but that’s a value, not a behaviour.

With help, they developed guiding behaviours that brought their strategy to life:

“We close the loop before the day ends.”

“We assume the best, but we ask when we’re unclear.”

These weren’t inspirational. They were operational.

And they changed the game. Cross-functional collaboration improved. Leaders started calling out and celebrating the behaviours. And frontline employees began to reflect that same clarity in how they supported members.

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What Guiding Behaviours Do That Core Values Can’t

Here’s the thing: behaviours are measurable. Discussable. Observable. You can hold them up and ask, “Did that just happen?”

They also reinforce strategy in the trenches. Because when you define a few critical behaviours that match your company’s direction, you create a culture that doesn’t just believe in the mission—it executes it. (To follow this line through, we encourage you to ensure your mission/purpose statement actually matters to your people as well!)

This is the power of strategic clarity through behavioural alignment.

And it’s a far cry from values that sit in an employee handbook collecting digital dust.

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Strategy Needs Ground-Level Traction

There’s a difference between vision that gets airtime and vision that gets traction. Traction happens when people know what to do, how to act, and what “winning” looks like this week, not just “someday.”

Guiding behaviours create that traction.

We talk a lot about strategic momentum: it's one of the four ingredients of organizational health. Many company leaders feel they're doing well in that area because they have excellent project managers helping everyone stay on target. That's a fantastic contribution, but leaders can do more to harness how strategy is accelerated by culture. Clarity about not just what the goals are, but how we can expect each other to work together to achieve these goals, is key to gaining that necessary momentum.

Guiding behaviours also make accountability easier. When you’ve named a shared behavioural expectation, you don’t need to psychoanalyze someone’s intentions—you just look at what they did. Or didn’t do.

That gives leaders tools and teams confidence.

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How to Get Started with Guiding Behaviours

If your company is stuck in the “values without clarity” trap, here’s how to start the shift:

1. ‍Revisit your strategy. Where is your organization going? What needs to feel different on the ground?‍
2. Name the few behaviours that make or break progress. Think about what great looks like on a good day. Then write it like you’d say it in the hallway, not a corporate brochure.‍
3. Test for tangibility. Can you picture someone doing it? Can you call it out or correct it?‍
4. Use these guiding behaviours everywhere. In hiring. In one-on-ones. In recognition. In decisions. When they show up consistently, they become part of your culture’s reflex.

In a world full of uncertainty, people crave clarity. They want to know what matters and how they’re expected to act.

Core values might get you started. But if you want traction—if you want strategy to show up in the way people actually behave—you need to go one step further.

Make it visible. Make it practical. Make it repeatable.

Because when teams share an understanding of what to do and a belief in why it matters, they will figure out and follow through on the how in incredible ways.