Recently I found myself thinking about our company’s core values.

Not casually. Not as a branding exercise. But because of a real situation in the field.

One of my technicians had been asked to remove a blood stain from a carpet. The technician attempted a cleaning process, didn’t completely remove the stain, and left the home telling the customer that was “as good as it gets.” The customer later commented in a survey that she might try hydrogen peroxide herself.

That bothered me.

Not because every stain must come out. Anyone who has worked in textiles knows some stains become permanent depending on the fiber, dye, and time involved. But what bothered me was the mindset behind the decision. It felt less like a technician had exhausted the possibilities and more like the problem had simply been accepted too quickly.

That moment led me back to a question leaders eventually face:

Do our core values actually shape behavior, or are they just words on a wall?

Why Core Values Exist

Core values are not meant to be inspirational posters.

They exist to answer a very practical question:

“How do we make decisions when no one is watching?”

In our business, technicians spend most of their day working independently inside customers’ homes. There is no supervisor standing beside them for every decision. The culture of the company has to travel with them.

That’s what core values are supposed to do.

They create a shared philosophy about how we approach the work.

At Zerorez Boise our values are:

• Extreme Ownership
• Humble Leadership
• Open-Minded Growth
• Solve for the Big Picture
• Realize Potential

These values are not random. They describe how we want our team to think about problems, customers, and each other.

The Temptation to Add Another Value

When the blood stain situation happened, I briefly considered adding another core value:

Relentless Pursuit.

The idea behind it was simple. I want technicians who refuse to give up easily on a problem. I want people who are curious, persistent, and determined to improve a situation before accepting defeat.

Relentless pursuit felt like a good description of that mindset.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized something important about core values.

You shouldn’t change them lightly.

Why Core Values Should Be Stable

Core values are supposed to act like the foundation of a building. They should be stable enough that people can build habits and expectations around them.

If leadership changes them every time a new idea appears, they lose their meaning.

Employees start to see them as temporary slogans instead of real standards.

In other words, if core values move too often, they stop guiding behavior.

That realization made me step back and ask a different question:

Did we actually need a new value, or did we need to better explain the ones we already had?

The Values Already Contained the Answer

When I looked again at our existing values, I realized the mindset I wanted was already there.

Extreme Ownership means taking responsibility for outcomes, not just effort. If a problem can be improved, ownership means pursuing the solution.

Open-Minded Growth means staying curious and willing to learn. Difficult stains, unusual fibers, and challenging situations should trigger curiosity rather than resignation.

Solve for the Big Picture means thinking beyond the quickest answer. Sometimes the obvious solution isn’t the best long-term solution.

Realize Potential reminds us that every technician, every customer interaction, and every job is an opportunity to become better.

The philosophy I was trying to capture with “relentless pursuit” was already embedded in these values.

What we needed was not a new value.

What we needed was clearer standards that show how those values appear in real work.

Clarifying the Standard Instead

Rather than rewriting our core values, we decided to clarify how they apply in the field.

For technicians, that means reinforcing a simple professional expectation:

We don’t walk away from solvable problems.

That doesn’t mean every stain must disappear. It means we approach problems with curiosity, persistence, and professionalism before concluding what is possible.

We also introduced what we call the Three-Tool Rule. Before deciding that a stain or soil condition cannot be improved, a technician should attempt or evaluate multiple appropriate solutions. Sometimes the difference between failure and success is simply trying another method.

The goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is professional effort and thoughtful problem solving.

Core Values Should Guide Behavior

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that core values are not about wording.

They are about how decisions are made when situations get complicated.

They shape how a technician approaches a difficult stain.
They shape how a CSR handles a frustrated customer.
They shape how leaders respond to mistakes.

If values are working correctly, they don’t need to change often. Instead, they become clearer over time as people learn how to apply them in real situations.

The Long Game

Building a company culture is not about slogans.

It’s about consistency over time.

Clear values create shared expectations. Shared expectations create habits. Habits create culture.

And culture, more than anything else, determines whether a company simply performs work or actually builds a profession.

That’s why core values deserve careful thought.

They are not marketing language.

They are the compass the team carries with them into every decision.