Core Values Exercise
The Core Values Exercise narrows a long list of values down through repeated cuts to a handful you'd actually sacrifice something for, which is a harder and more honest test than which ones merely sound good.
A long list narrows through several passes down to a small cluster at the base.
Reach for this when…
- A decision is stuck because two good options both feel 'right' and there's no way to compare them.
- Someone can list company values from a poster but couldn't tell you their own.
- A values statement was written once and never used to decide anything since.
How to run it
- Review a long master list of values and circle every one that resonates, with no limit.
- Cut to the top ten.
- Cut again to the top five.
- Rank the final five in order of importance to you.
- Write a one-sentence definition of what each final value actually means in practice.
- Test each one: would you sacrifice this for the value above it? If not, it doesn't belong.
- Use the final short list to work through a live decision or conflict.
A worked example
Situation. Willem Bakker runs Bakker Keramiek, a small ceramics workshop in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and had just been offered a wholesale contract that would triple his revenue if he outsourced the throwing to a factory.
Applied. He ran the exercise against his actual decision rather than in the abstract, cutting forty circled values down to five and then testing each against the contract in front of him. Craftsmanship survived the sacrifice test; growth didn't.
Result. He turned the contract down and raised his retail prices instead. The decision took him an afternoon once the exercise forced him to rank the values rather than just list them.
The catch
The exercise produces a clean list, and a clean list can feel more settled than the person's actual conflict really is - values that look resolved on paper can still fight each other in a live decision. It also only works if someone is honest in the sacrifice test; softened answers just reproduce the poster.
A value you wouldn't sacrifice anything for is a preference, not a value.
Origin: Various (values card-sort tradition)