Guiding Principles: Core Values, Key Characteristics, Critical Actions
Turn vague core values into hiring filters and revenue-driving behaviors.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
Miller keeps core values but adds two sharper layers. Core values define an aspirational identity but are too vague on their own. Key characteristics are the specific traits a person must have to help hit your economic objectives, turning values into real hiring filters (integrity plus loving animals for a pet store). Critical actions are the concrete behaviors everyone performs together to move the numbers, like a restaurant server asking every guest about the world-famous brownie. Three of each reshapes an entire culture while directly serving the bottom line.
Origin
Miller developed the guiding-principles worksheet as part of the Small Business Flight Plan digital tool that accompanies his book, filling it out with worked examples so owners can define their own values, characteristics, and actions.
Core principles
- 01Core values alone are too vague, even a bank robber will defend their integrity.
- 02Key characteristics are the specific traits a team member needs to help hit the economic objectives.
- 03Critical actions are the concrete behaviors everyone performs together to hit the economic objectives.
- 04Three of each, core values, key characteristics, and critical actions, transforms a culture.
- 05Critical actions both drive the bottom line and reinforce the desired culture.
How to run it
- 1
Write three core values
State the aspirational identity of who you are going to be as a team, such as people who love their jobs and have each other's backs.
Watch out Values like 'integrity' are too vague to guide behavior; even a bank robber will defend their integrity.
- 2
Define three key characteristics
Name the specific traits a team member needs to help hit your economic objectives, such as loving pets at a pet store or obsessing about simple user interfaces at a software company.
Pro tip This is where you dial into the uniqueness of your culture and know exactly who to hire.
- 3
Define three critical actions
Specify the concrete things everyone does together to hit the objectives, like asking every diner if they've tried the world-famous brownie.
Pro tip Make sure each critical action both stimulates the bottom line and reinforces the culture.
In the wild
A restaurant with an objective to sell dessert to 35% of customers is stuck at 15%. Its critical action becomes asking every single guest, 'Have you tried our world-famous brownie?'
→ Brownie sales rise sharply because the behavior is now a defined, repeated critical action.
When a customer says thank you, Chick-fil-A staff respond 'my pleasure,' a critical action that positions the employee as a humble servant of the guest.
→ The repeated behavior creates a distinctive service culture across the chain.
Common mistakes
Stopping at vague core values
Values like integrity are so broad that anyone can claim them, so they neither guide hiring nor change behavior.
Divorcing culture from economics
Key characteristics and critical actions must connect to the economic objectives; otherwise culture work produces feelings but no results.
Is it for you?
Best for
Leaders building or resetting a distinctive culture tied to measurable outcomes.
Not ideal for
Teams that need pure operational fixes rather than cultural definition.
From the transcript
“If somebody says, our core values is integrity... if you caught a bank robber in mid bank robbery... they're gonna defend their integrity.”
“Key characteristics are the characteristics that you need to have in order for us to hit our economic objectives.”
“If you have three core values, three critical actions, and three key characteristics, your entire culture changes.”
From the episode
Donald Miller: How To Make Your First Million, 6 Steps To Grow Your Small Business in 2023
Donald Miller