Using Core Values as Your Compass: Let Them Guide You Through Tough Decisions
During a time of turmoil, it can feel extra hard to make hard decisions. We’ve been thinking a lot about that lately as we work with our clients. Many organizations are facing difficult choices and others are building their muscles for if and when they are forced to make difficult choices. Apart from waving a magic wand to take us to a place where these types of decisions aren’t even on the table, how can this process be easier? We find that there is a lot of power in letting your organizational values be your guide. When facing key decisions—strategic, financial, operational, or ethical—organizations can ask:
Does this align with our core values?
Which value(s) are most relevant to this choice?
What values would I be rejecting if I made this decision?
Could we tell this story proudly to our staff, community, and donors?
While values won’t always make hard decisions easy, they can make them easier. Instead of reacting solely to urgency or external pressures, organizations can respond with integrity—guided by what they stand for and who they strive to be. This doesn’t mean decisions will be painless, but it does mean they can be principled.
How might this look? Well, we wanted to dig into this for ourselves, so with the guidance of The Management Center’s writing on the topic, we set out to define our core values. It took multiple working sessions, honest conversations, and a few rounds of revision to land on a set of values that truly felt like us. But in many ways, that process was just as valuable as the outcome.
In today’s workplace, where capacity is stretched and the push to do more is constant, values are becoming a kind of new gold. For us, they have sincerely become a steady reference point, helping us navigate uncertainty, make clearer decisions, and stay aligned with work that resonates.
If your team hasn’t had the chance to articulate or revisit its values, we encourage you to make space for that. It doesn’t have to be formal or final right away. But investing in those conversations—however messy or nonlinear—can lead to something enduring and surprisingly grounding when you need it most.