Core Values Facebook (Meta) Building Blocks Strategy and Positioning

What can you learn from the core values of Facebook (Meta)? The American company Meta, formerly Facebook, has naturally been under fire for years. Privacy, hate speech, election interference, the self-image of young women, the list of objections goes on. At the same time, the brand consciously chooses clear core values that guide the behavior of its now 100,000 employees. How does founder Mark Zuckerberg think about defining core values and what can we learn from this? We share his recent statements, our vision on this, and how core values relate to the positioning of your brand.

In the interview by Tim Ferriss with Facebook’s (Meta) Mark Zuckerberg, he spoke about core values and their influence on strategy and company culture. This aligns well with our own vision in this area and provides an interesting view on how a large company uses its core values as a strategic tool. We picked out 3 aspects:

• Distinctive core values
• Defining core values
• Developing core values

Distinctive core values

“At the core, I have always believed that values are only useful if you can legitimately disagree with them. A value like ‘be honest’ is not very helpful because it’s obvious that you should be honest. You feel bad if you have to write that down. If you have to write that down, something went wrong. But I also don’t know a good company that doesn’t focus on honesty and expect that from its employees. [..] If you can choose 5 or 6 concepts to program into your culture, you want those concepts to be ones that a good company could reasonably do differently.”

The way brands operate is often more important than the result. CoolBlue’s slogan ‘everything for a smile’ doesn’t promise a better device but a pleasant experience. The company links ‘headstrong’ as a core value to this, which you see in every advertisement (which almost always brings a smile). Strong core values are thus a tool for differentiation, not a list of rules of conduct. Core values guide behavior rather than prescribe an action.

Distinctive core values
Many brands find it difficult to choose distinctive core values. They get stuck on vague concepts or cannot agree on the essence of their brand. We help teams break through this. With an interactive methodology around fun workshops, we quickly create energy and a clear result. We would love to tell you more about it.

Defining core values

“Good values, you have to give something up to get them. ‘Move fast’, our value, you can’t simply tell people to act quickly. The question is, what’s the deal, what are you willing to give up for it? For a while, we had the famous ‘Move fast and break things’ which indicated that we tolerated a certain amount of bugs to encourage people to act quickly. Because I think moving fast is the key to learning. The faster we iterate, the faster we can incorporate feedback from our customers into the product. If competitors update once a year and we update every day, then of course we learn faster and build a better product.”

The core of positioning is taking a unique place in the mind of the customer. And that also means there is a position you do not take. What behavior fits and what especially does not? Facebook preferred an imperfect product if it meant it could innovate quickly. Some companies will make the opposite choice and prefer ‘slow and steady wins the race’, for example. A target audience that values reliability or predictability will develop a preference for these companies instead of Facebook. The same applies to hiring people; which applicant feels at home at both companies?

How do you define core values?
A good way to define core values is by answering the question: “With what concrete behavior will our brand distinguish itself from the competition?”. If we think of Gorilla’s ‘faster than you’, do you think the quick delivery service pursues core values like honesty and transparency? It wouldn’t surprise us if, for example, ‘Action’ tops their list, making it clear to everyone what is expected of them.

Developing core values

“But [with ‘Move fast and break things’] we reached a point where, with the company’s growth, we produced so many bugs that it didn’t give us speed but actually slowed us down. So I realized: moving fast remains essential but we need to change our approach. So it evolved into the less sexy phrase ‘move fast with stable infrastructure’. Our new bet was that, with a disproportionate investment in building good infrastructure and abstractions in our companies, the average engineer becomes faster and more productive, getting more done than at other companies.”

Companies go through different phases of growth and market developments also play an important role. A brand needs tools to respond adequately. By distilling core values from the positioning that stimulate the right behavior – defining the culture – brands ensure agility. By reshaping existing core values, employees know faster what to do.

The importance of positioning
Why is positioning important? Because it is precisely the coherence between the different core values that makes the difference. This determines the culture of an organization and the type of people who want to work there. The saying ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’ is not without reason; only with the right culture can your brand make a difference. In positioning, all aspects of your culture come together in one compelling story. A story everyone understands and can tell a new colleague without noise.

Core values are an essential part of a brand’s distinctiveness, but not every organization uses them optimally. Want to know how your core values can contribute to the growth of your brand? Then contact us.