After the ‘People’ section of Scaling Up, we move onto ‘Strategy’. This section also has worksheets for you to get hands-on with decision-making and documenting your strategy. So let’s dive straight into Chapter 6, The Core – Values, Purpose, and Competencies.
This blog is part of a series looking at the habits required to successfully scale a sustainable business. Read our introduction about the Scaling Up book and how to implement it in your business, which includes a complete list of all the blogs that explore this book.
The Core Values (what really drives your business?)
When people talk about ‘company values’, it can sound more like marketing than business strategy. In Scaling Up, core values are nothing to do with advertising slogans, vague aspirations, or platitudes. They are a small set of fundamental beliefs that define how your company behaves and makes decisions.
Core values aren’t something you make up. Rather, they are something you uncover by observing your very best people on their very best days. What behaviours do they show? What do they prioritise, protect, or push for? That’s where your core values live. They already exist; you just need to discover them.
You don’t want a long list, simply identify three to five core values that are authentic, memorable, and actionable. If a value can’t be remembered or applied to a real-world decision, it’s probably not a value. Identify values that people can use as a compass, something that helps their day-to-day.
Once you have your list of core values, allow some time to test their validity. This means checking in with leadership during the quarterly planning meetings to see if there are plenty of examples of people living the values. If examples are hard to come by, the value is either a mere aspiration or has shifted significantly. Checking in allows you to discard unhelpful values, identify ones you may have missed, and tweak ones that weren’t quite right.
The Core Purpose (why you really exist and why it matters)
What’s the purpose of your business? Yes, you want to make money, but that’s not a purpose, only a result. Your core purpose goes much deeper. It’s the reason your company exists beyond profit. It’s what gives your work meaning, clarity, and direction over the long term.
In Scaling Up, they have chosen the term ‘purpose’ over ‘mission’ because it is the heartbeat of your organisation rather than a short-term assignment. Purpose is not tied to your products, services, or current strategy. Instead, it’s about your impact – the difference you want to make in the world, in your industry, or in people’s lives.
Finding it takes some digging. You’ll need to ask the deeper questions, and you’ll need to ask “Why?” a lot! Start with the question What do we do? And then move onto Why does this matter? or What difference can we make? Each time you ask “Why?” you distil your purpose a little more. In the end, you should have identified a powerful call to action.
Try not to confuse core purpose with brand promise. We’ll look more at brand promise in the next chapter, but promise is more about benefits and value than an underlying reason to exist. Focus on uncovering what drives you, naming it clearly, and making it part of how you operate. When everyone in the company knows why you exist – and believes in it – you can stop pushing people to perform because they will all be pulling in the same direction.
The Core Competencies (what you are brilliant at that others aren’t)
Every business does a lot of things, but only a few of those things actually make it stand out. Your core competencies are the unique strengths that set you apart and are critical to your success. Citing Gary Hamel and C K Prahalad, this part of Chapter 6 discusses your core competencies, which should have three attributes:
- Be hard for competitors to imitate
- Able to be reused widely for many products and markets
- Contribute to the benefits the end user experiences and the value of the product/service to customers
Core competencies aren’t just things you’re good at. They’re things you’re better at than most, and that give you a real strategic edge. Think of them as your unfair advantages. To identify them, you need to be honest and curious. What do customers rave about that competitors struggle to match? What do you consistently do better, faster, or more creatively? Where do you deliver value in a way that’s not easily replaced or replicated?
Just as important is to recognise what you are bad at. Identifying these core weaknesses will ensure you don’t invest in or build a strategy around something you aren’t effective at. Core competencies shape what you say yes to, what you walk away from, and how you scale. If you try to be everything to everyone, you end up average. If you focus on what you’re uniquely good at, you build something sustainable.
Bringing Your Core Alive (making it more than just words)
This final part of the chapter addresses the critical challenge many companies face: how to transform your carefully crafted Values, Purpose, and Competency statements from mere wall decorations into living drivers of company culture and decision-making.
Harnish acknowledges what many business leaders discover the hard way – the real work comes in implementation, ensuring these principles become embedded in your company’s DNA rather than remaining lofty aspirations.
Storytelling as a core tool
One of Harnish’s key recommendations is leveraging the power of storytelling. Stories about employees exemplifying Core Values in action create emotional connections and provide concrete examples of what living the values looks like. These stories, shared regularly at meetings and in company communications, help make abstract values tangible and memorable.
Hiring based on values
Your Core Values should directly inform who joins – and who remains within – your organisation. This includes incorporating values-based questions in interviews and making adherence to Core Values a non-negotiable factor in employment decisions. In addition, you should create recognition programmes that specifically celebrate team members who embody your Core Values to signal their importance throughout the organisation.
Onboarding is a critical process
The onboarding process is a crucial opportunity to immerse new team members in your Core. Rather than overwhelming new hires with operational details on day one, focus first on thoroughly introducing them to your company’s Core Values, Purpose, and culture. This initial immersion helps ensure new team members understand the “why” behind your company before diving into their specific roles.
Daily practices and routines
For your Core to truly come alive, it must be referenced in daily operations. Harnish suggests incorporating Core Values into meeting rhythms, performance appraisals, decision-making processes, and problem-solving frameworks. When faced with challenges, teams should ask, “What would our Core Values suggest we do here?”
There are various ways to bring Core Values into the day-to-day, from newsletters to corporate improvement projects. It is this everyday reinforcement that can result in very real changes in the business. The Core is also the foundation of your strategy, which is covered in the next chapter.
“Every time you praise or reprimand someone, tie it back to a Core Value or Purpose.”
Chapter 6 of Scaling Up cuts to the heart of organisational identity, with a practical framework to uncover authentic Core Values, articulate a meaningful Purpose, and identify genuine Competencies that set you apart. The message is clear: your Core isn’t window dressing but a growth engine. Use it to hire, fire, onboard, and make daily decisions, or watch your scaling efforts collapse under cultural confusion. Bring your Core alive through storytelling and consistent action, or it remains just words on a wall.
