Walk into most small offices in Lagos or Abuja and you will find a laminated sheet on the wall listing "Integrity, Excellence, Teamwork" in a font nobody remembers choosing. Ask any staff member what those words mean in practice and you will usually get a shrug. That is the problem with most core values exercises. They get written once, framed, and forgotten.
Core values only earn their place on the wall if they change how people actually behave: how a sales rep talks to an angry customer, how a manager handles a staff member who keeps arriving late, how the business decides which vendor to pay first when cash is tight. This guide walks you through building values your team will actually use, not just admire.
Why Most Core Values Fail in Nigerian Businesses
Many founders copy values from a template they found online or from a bigger company they admire. The result reads well but means nothing to the people doing the work. A logistics startup in Port Harcourt does not need the same values as a fintech in Lagos, and a family run manufacturing business in Kano does not need the same values as a five person marketing agency.
Values also fail when they are not tied to consequences. If "honesty" is a value but a top performing sales rep who falsifies expense reports keeps getting promoted, everyone learns the real rule: results matter more than the poster on the wall. Your team is always watching what gets rewarded, not what gets printed.
Step 1: Look at Your Best and Worst Moments
Before you write a single word, gather your leadership team, or if you are a solo founder, sit with a notebook, and answer two questions honestly.
First, think of a moment your business handled something exceptionally well. Maybe a customer had a serious complaint and your team resolved it so smoothly the customer became a repeat buyer. What behavior made that happen?
Second, think of a moment your business handled something badly. Maybe a supplier delay caused you to disappoint a client and nobody communicated proactively. What behavior was missing?
The traits that show up in your best moments and the traits that were absent in your worst moments are the raw material for your values. This is far more accurate than brainstorming abstract words in a meeting room.
Step 2: Draft Values That Sound Like You, Not a Template
Write three to five values, no more. A list of ten values is a list nobody remembers. Each value should be short enough to say from memory and specific enough that it could not apply to any random company.
Instead of "Excellence," try something with texture, like "We fix the problem before we explain who caused it." Instead of "Customer First," try "We answer within one business day, even to say we need more time." These sound like actual instructions because they are.
Avoid vague adjectives entirely if you can. A value like "Innovation" means nothing to a cashier at your shop or a delivery rider on your payroll. A value like "We test the cheaper option before assuming it will not work" gives that same rider or cashier something concrete to act on.
Step 3: Pressure Test Each Value Against a Real Decision
For every draft value, ask yourself this question: would this value ever cost me money or a customer, and would I still keep it?
If a value never forces a trade off, it is probably a slogan, not a value. For example, if your value is "We are transparent with pricing," would you still honor a quoted price to a client even after your supplier raised costs on you unexpectedly, or naira depreciation made the deal less profitable? If the honest answer is no, rewrite the value until it survives contact with a real business decision.
This step matters enormously in the Nigerian operating environment, where forex volatility, unreliable power, and late payment culture create constant temptation to cut corners. Values that only work when business is easy are not values at all.
Step 4: Build Values Into How You Hire and Fire
Values change nothing if they live only in a document. The fastest way to make them real is to use them in your hiring process. During interviews, ask candidates to describe a situation where they had to choose between two of your values in tension, for instance speed versus accuracy. Their answer tells you more than any certificate.
Equally important, be willing to let go of a talented staff member who consistently violates your values, even if their numbers look good. Nothing communicates that values matter more clearly than watching leadership enforce them when it is inconvenient.
Step 5: Repeat Them Until They Are Boring to You
Founders often stop talking about values because saying the same thing repeatedly feels awkward. Resist that instinct. Mention your values in weekly team meetings, reference them when praising good work, and reference them again when correcting mistakes. By the time you are tired of saying them, your team is just starting to internalize them.
Consider posting them somewhere staff actually look, your internal WhatsApp group, your onboarding document, or a Slack channel description, rather than only a wall poster nobody reads after the first month.
A Simple Values Framework to Copy
If you need a starting structure, try this format for each value: a short phrase, one sentence explaining what it looks like in action, and one sentence explaining what it looks like when someone violates it. This clarity removes ambiguity and gives managers a fair, consistent standard to coach against.
Final Thought
Core values are not a marketing exercise. They are an operating manual for how your business behaves under pressure, when a customer is angry, when cash is short, or when nobody is watching. Build values from your real history, test them against real trade offs, and enforce them consistently, and you will have something far more valuable than a poster: a team that actually knows how to act like your company, even when you are not in the room.
