The Twelve Core Action Values™

And 48 Performance Cornerstones™
That Put Action Into Those Values

The most important determinant of the kind of life you will lead, and the success you will achieve, is the values that shape your attitudes and your actions. Like most people, you undoubtedly have good solid values. Like almost everyone else, however, you have probably not put much thought into defining exactly what those values are, much less into the action steps by which you make them visible in your work and in your life.

The Twelve Core Action Values presented here already are your values, because they are values that have been honored in every culture across the ages. What is unique is the comprehensive and systematic approach to helping you crystallize and operationalize those values using Performance Cornerstones.

When people throughout an organization share these values, it inevitably fosters a more positive, enthusiastic, and empowering culture.

The best way to use this document is to review it carefully, in its entirety. Then adopt one of The Twelve Core Action Values each month, and within that month, commit yourself to one of the four Performance Cornerstones each week. You will be astonished at how quickly you begin to reframe your attitudes, decisions, and actions in terms of the values that really matter to you.

Values 1-4: Laying a Solid Foundation

Core Action Value # 1: Authenticity
The greatest triumph of the human spirit is to become the unique individual that you were meant to be, and one of the greatest tragedies is being successful at pretending to be someone that you’re not.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Self Awareness
Know yourself – your strengths and weaknesses, your inner emotional matrix, and what you really do and do not want from life. This is a lifelong process in which the questions are often more important than the answers.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Self Mastery
Escape the pernicious imprisonment of the Iron Triangle of False Personality by keeping your ego out of the way, mastering your emotions instead of reacting to them, and pursuing only authentic ambitions.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Self Belief
If you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect others to believe in you? Build upon the four levels of the Self Belief Pyramid – self concept, self image, self esteem, and self confidence.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Self Truth
Be true to yourself and to your authentic dreams; ask yourself often if what you are about to do or say is consistent with your ideal best self, then follow that answer down the path of personal growth and authenticity.

Core Action Value # 2: Courage
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the determination to overcome the fears that stand in the way of achievement. Caring is the root of courage.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Diagnosis
Pay attention to your anxiety levels, since high anxiety can provoke unwarranted fear that in turn degenerates into paralysis or panic. Give fear a name and it becomes a problem – it’s easier to solve problems than it is to conquer fear.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Transformation
Make fear work for you and not against you by transforming it from a negative barrier that paralyzes into positive energy that catalyzes. Fear can be an ally by warning you when you are unprepared for possible future events; it can also be a call to action and a call to faith.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Action
Action is the distinction between wishful thinking and positive thinking, your declaration that you are taking responsibility for your own life.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Connection
The more overpowering the fear seems to be, the more important it is to seek strength, wisdom, and courage by connecting with others. Remember, fear is contagious, but so is courage.

Core Action Value # 3: Perseverance
The bigger the dream, the greater the challenge. Winners don’t quit when things get tough.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Preparation
Obstacles and adversity are inevitable, but they can be anticipated and prepared for. Prepare yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for the problems that everyone sooner or later must inevitably face – including family, health, money, and career problems – and eventually death itself.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Perspective
Your point of view is more important in managing adversity than the absolute magnitude of difficulty itself. Apparent failure is merely a dress rehearsal for future success; it’s only real failure if you quit.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Toughness
Mental toughness rests on the 3 Ps of Perseverance – Purpose, Passion, and Patience. Sometimes, the one person in your life who is most in need of “tough love” is the person who looks back at you from the mirror.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Learning
Every adversity has the potential to build character, teach important life lessons, create new opportunities, and cultivate meaningful relationships.

Core Action Value # 4: Vision
The vision of today defines the boundaries of tomorrow’s achievements. Successful people dream big dreams; successful organizations set audacious goals. Every great accomplishment was once an impossible dream.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Attention
The choices you make for allocating your attention will define the opportunities you perceive all around you, and create the foundation upon which your future vision is built.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Imagination
Rather than wasting your imaginative capacity on worry and fantasy, use it to build a tangible mental picture of your authentic dreams – a virtual memory of the future.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Planning
Planning is an ongoing process of creating stepping stones between present reality and the future dream.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Belief
You’ll see it when you believe it – belief transforms today’s impossible dream into tomorrow’s reality. Practice the 5-As of building a memory of the future – Articulation, Affirmation, Asking, Action, and Adaptation.

Values 5-8: Taking Effective Action

Core Action Value # 5: Mission
Replace your job description with a mission statement: when you make your work your mission, you have taken a big step toward fulfilling your vision for the ideal future, and for crafting a meaningul and fulfilling life in the present.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Attitude
Your attitude is contagious; be a positive energy faucet, not a negative energy drain. Take pride in what you do and in how you do it. The attitude with which you approach your work is one of the most important choices you make every day.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Creativity
In today’s fast-paced world, think ethic is a more important determinant of success than work ethic, and essential to effective problem solving. The mission-driven person becomes adept at finding a creative way around every obstacle.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Contribution
People who are mission-oriented are determined to make a difference, improve the lives of others, and make this a better world in which to live.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Teamwork
In the complex world of today, every worthwhile mission requires a team effort. Be willing to ask for the help you need, and volunteer to help where you are needed. Partner with people whose strengths complement your weaknesses. Know when to lead and when to follow, and don’t worry about who gets the credit.

Core Action Value # 6: Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is the fuel that powers a happy and meaningful life, and that creates a positive and enjoyable working environment. It is the force that batters down barriers, holds together high-performance teams, and achieves impossible dreams.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Positivity
Enthusiastic performers replace pessimism, cynicism, and other negative attitudes and behaviors with cheerful positivity and optimism. Instead of complaining about perceived problems and injustices, they look for the best in people and work to bring about solutions to problems.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Curiosity
Cultivating a wide-ranging interest in other people and in the world around you is a great way to boost your own enthusiasm. Remember, the only dumb question is the one you are afraid to ask for fear of looking dumb.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Spontaneity
Capitalize on every opportunity to congratulate a coworker, celebrate a success (or a good attempt), and to astonish a customer.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Humor
The ability to laugh (especially at yourself) is an important determinant of a successful career and a happy life. It could even save your life. If you don’t think that you have a sense of humor, or if you have difficulty laughing, then take the advice of AA and fake it till you make it.

Core Action Value # 7: Focus
The One Big Yes requires lots of little No’s. All successful people and all successful organizations keep a focus on important priorities and avoid being bogged down by trivial distractions.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Target
The fewer big goals you pursue at one time, the more goals you will accomplish over a longer period of time. Make every effort to keep the One Big Yes front and center on your priority list.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Concentration
Give your highest priority goals everything you have – all your time, attention, energy, financial, and physical resources. Turn off the TV, stop wasting energy on anger and complaining, refrain from spending money on things you really don’t need, and invest yourself fully in the One Big Yes that really matters.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Speed
Use the Five-Get-It Formula for Getting Things Done – Get Ready, Get Started, Get Help, Get Finished, then Get On to the next priority. Many management experts believe that speed will be a defning source of competitive advantage in the years to come.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Momentum
Overcome the law of entropy by moving decisively from the completion of one project to the initiation of the next. It’s a lot easier to keep moving than it is to start again from a standstill.

Core Action Value # 8: Awareness
Inner awareness is the essence of emotional equanimity and spiritual peace; outer awareness defines the opportunities you will discover to make progress in your life and to make a difference in the world.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Mindfulness
Pay attention to the world around you (outer mindfulness) and to what is going on within you (inner mindfulness). People say “pay” when asking for your attention because they are asking you to give them your most precious mental resource.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Objectivity
See the world as it really is – not as it used to be, as you wish it were, or as you fear it might become. Look at every situation from multiple angles before making judgments or decisions.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Empathy
Be aware of other people’s emotions, and how your own attitudes and behaviors influence them. Empathy is one of the most important skills of emotional intelligence.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Reflection
Make time for regular contemplation. One of the best investments you can make in yourself is regular writing in a journal, with a focus on lessons of the past and plans for the future.

Values 9-12: Making a Contribution

Core Action Value # 9: Service
Whatever you most need in life, the best way for you to get it is to help someone else get it who needs it even more than you do.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Helpfulness
See your job description as a floor, not a ceiling, and go out of your way to be helpful whenever you see the opportunity to do so.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Charity
To be happy, be generous – not just with your money, but also with your time and your emotions.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Compassion
Sometimes the greatest service you can provide to someone else is compassion, taking the time to walk in their shoes before you judge. Remind yourself to look past someone’s job title, physical appearance, or other superficialities and seek to reach the human being behind the mask.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Renewal
You cannot pour from an empty pitcher; make time for yourself, ask for the help you need, and be receptive to accepting advice and assistance. Even the most compassionate of caregivers require a periodic infusion of caring for themselves.

Core Action Value # 10: Integrity
While temporary success might be achieved by cutting corners, all long term success is built on a foundation of integrity. In an organization as for the individual, trust and respect are earned by acting with integrity.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Honesty
Be honest with yourself first, and then with others. Be clear about your own motivations and aspirations, and be diplomatically truthful in your communication with others.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Reliability
Make sure others can rely on you to do what you say you’re going to do, when you have said you’re going to do it, and at the quality level they deserve to expect.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Humility
Treat other people with respect and dignity, and don’t allow arrogance to set you up for failure. One of the great paradoxes of history is that humble leaders are far more likely to leave a legacy of success than are arrogant leaders, who often sabotage their own efforts.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Stewardship
Honor your responsibility to be an effective steward of your own resources, as well as the resources of your organization and of the earth. Productivity is a debt we owe to our customers, and conservation is a debt we owe to our grandchildren.

Core Action Value # 11: Faith
From the dawn of history, faith has been the single most powerful source of human motivation; act on the four pillars of faith.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Gratitude
The first thing you will notice in a person with strong faith is that they are grateful for the blessings of their life, not resentful for what they perceive to be missing from their life.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Forgiveness
Have faith in other people; this is the essence of effective delegation. Be a Dionarap, which is the word paranoid spelled backwards. If you assume that everyone likes you and is seeking to help you, you will rarely be disappointed.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Love
Love is not a mushy emotion, it is the hard work of expressing your caring through service to others.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Spirituality
Clarify and solidify your spiritual beliefs; faith in a higher power has proven to be a source of healing, solace, and support for people in every age and in every culture.

Core Action Value # 12: Leadership
Management is something you do as part of a job description; leadership is something you grow into by influencing others through your values, attitudes, and actions. When leadership becomes an philosophy and a way of life, it is a value in its own right.

Performance Cornerstone # 1: Character
Character is destiny, said Heraclitus, and nowhere more so than in leadership (as we have seen repeatedly in recent years). Anyone can become a more effective leader by modeling their attitudes and their actions so as to cultivate strength of character. Character is forged through commitment to a higher purpose, nurtured by selflessness, and it demands total self-honesty. This is a gradual process that requires a lifelong commitment, but the change can be profound and lasting.

Performance Cornerstone # 2: Expectations
You tend to get what you expect. This ancient wisdom has been repeated so often and in so many ways through the ages because it reflects an eternal truth, and nowhere more so than in the relationship between leader and followers. Effective leaders look beyond superficial appearances to find and galvanize hidden strengths in others. Transforming leaders are those who raise others to higher levels of moral values and personal expectations.

Performance Cornerstone # 3: Fellowship
We yearn for fellowship in our workplaces, not mere association. There are simple yet powerful strategies that can help to foster a greater spirit of community in any organization. The best leaders create an all-or-none spirit of shared commitment, use obstacles and setbacks to reinforce the bonds of loyalty, and appreciate the power of symbols, stories, and rituals, to create a spirit of community.

Performance Cornerstone # 4: Quest
There is incredible potential energy waiting to be released when the corporate mission statement and the individual job description are subsumed into a real Quest. This has never been more important, because many experts are predicting a severe shortage of skilled workers in the decades to come, and the single-best way to earn workers’ loyalty is to make them feel that they are part of something bigger than a mere job – that they are part of a Quest. A spirit of Quest promotes loyalty to the organization, commitment to the mission, and service to the customer.