The Guide to Word Pictures

What Are Word Pictures?

Word Pictures are the missing link between your company’s values and actual performance.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated that your people say they value “integrity,” “accountability,” or “customer focus”—but no one can define what that really means on Monday morning—Word Pictures are the fix.

Word Pictures take fuzzy values and turn them into specific, observable, and coachable behaviors that your managers can use to evaluate, hire, coach, and reward performance. Because when values aren’t measurable, they’re meaningless.

And most company values? They're just expensive wallpaper.

Here's a real-life Word Pictures example

What Makes Word Pictures So Powerful?

Word Pictures define what “Needs Work,” “Good Work,” and “Great Work” actually look like for every core value in your organization.

Instead of vague platitudes like “be a team player” or “strive for excellence,” you get clarity like this:

✅ Customer Focus – “Needs Work”: Transfers customers without context, blames policy, uses jargon
✅ Customer Focus – “Good Work”: Owns the issue, follows up, communicates clearly
✅ Customer Focus – “Great Work”: Anticipates needs, fixes root issues, teaches others

Now your managers can coach in real-time, your employees can self-correct, and your HR team can finally hire and promote based on actual culture fit—not just gut feel.

This isn’t theory. It’s a system I’ve built with CEOs across industries—from Fortune 500s to fast-growth startups—and the results speak for themselves:

🔹 Companies using Word Pictures see engagement increases over 100%
🔹 One client slashed quality defects by 17% in 90 days
🔹 Others have cut turnover, boosted accountability, and turned around toxic teams

What Do Word Pictures Look Like?

Word Pictures translate your values into behavioral language that anyone can observe, coach, and measure. Here are just a few real-world examples of the kinds of Word Pictures we’ve built for clients across industries:

Teamwork (illustrative examples—Word Pictures go much deeper)
• Needs Work: Avoids team meetings, has frequent interpersonal conflicts, sees coworkers as competition, and gets defensive when given feedback.
• Good Work: Regularly participates in meetings, helps others succeed, gives and receives feedback constructively, and treats colleagues with respect.
• Great Work: Actively builds team cohesion, mentors others, encourages collaboration across departments, and models cultural sensitivity.

Commitment to the Job (illustrative examples—Word Pictures go much deeper)
• Needs Work: Arrives late, avoids responsibility, and shows little urgency or enthusiasm.
• Good Work: Meets deadlines, takes initiative, maintains a sense of urgency, and owns results.
• Great Work: Displays contagious enthusiasm, anticipates problems before they arise, and consistently goes above and beyond.

Quality of Work (illustrative examples—Word Pictures go much deeper)
• Needs Work: Frequent errors, minimal effort, and a tendency to blame others.
• Good Work: Consistently accurate, meets customer needs, and seeks performance improvement.
• Great Work: Zero errors, highly responsive to customer needs, and turns setbacks into opportunities to earn lasting loyalty.

Communication (illustrative examples—Word Pictures go much deeper)
• Needs Work: Difficult to understand, avoids speaking up, and delivers sloppy written communication.
• Good Work: Presents ideas clearly, listens actively, and adapts communication to the audience.
• Great Work: Inspires confidence through every interaction, excels at public speaking and training, and communicates with precision and empathy.

Leadership & Management (illustrative examples—Word Pictures go much deeper)
• Needs Work: Avoids feedback, delays discipline, and offers vague direction.
• Good Work: Provides regular feedback, clearly defines roles, and drives results through accountability.
• Great Work: Builds trust across the organization, proactively develops talent, and leads with transparency and integrity.

These are just a few examples. Word Pictures can be developed for virtually any role, department, or core value—from “customer obsession” to “innovation” to “intellectual honesty.” Ready to build yours? Let’s talk.

Why Most Companies Need Help Building Word Pictures

You could try to build these yourself—but in most organizations, the language of performance is broken.

You’ve got leaders who say they value accountability but can’t describe what it looks like. Managers who confuse “soft skills” with “intangibles.” Employees who are never quite sure what’s expected of them.

That’s where we come in. We work directly with your leadership team to:
✅ Identify your true core values (not the ones that just sound nice)
✅ Facilitate the right conversations to define behavioral standards
✅ Build detailed Word Pictures for each value—“Needs Work,” “Good Work,” and “Great Work”
✅ Train your leaders to coach and manage using this framework
✅ Integrate Word Pictures into hiring, performance reviews, recognition, and daily ops

The result? Values that finally have teeth. Managers who finally have tools. A culture where performance and values actually align.