Top 7 Guiding Principles Templates

Guiding Principles serve as a compass for decision-making and behavior, aligning actions with core values and long-term goals. They help maintain consistency and integrity in both personal and professional life. A Guiding Principles Notion template can streamline the process of defining and revisiting these principles, ensuring they are always accessible and top of mind.

Before you get started in creating your own Guiding Principles, check out these Guiding Principles Notion templates below to help make it easier.

What Should Guiding Principles Templates Include?

Choosing the right Guiding Principles template in Notion can significantly streamline the process of aligning your team's values and actions. Here are key components to look for in a high-quality template:

  1. Clarity of Purpose: The template should clearly define the core values and mission of the organization to ensure everyone understands the foundational goals.

  2. Flexibility: A good template allows for some customization to reflect the unique aspects of your organization while maintaining the overall structure.

  3. Actionable Steps: It should break down principles into actionable steps that can be implemented and tracked within Notion.

  4. Review Mechanisms: Includes built-in methods for periodic review and updates of the principles to keep them relevant as the organization evolves.

Selecting a template with these components will help foster a cohesive and proactive organizational culture.

What Should Guiding Principles Templates Avoid?

When selecting a Guiding Principles template in Notion, it's important to be aware of certain features that might hinder rather than help. Here are three key components to steer clear of:

  1. Overly Complex Structures: Templates with complicated frameworks can be difficult to navigate and maintain. Choose simplicity to ensure usability and effectiveness.

  2. Generic Content: Avoid templates that are filled with vague or one-size-fits-all content. The more tailored the template to specific organizational needs, the better.

  3. Fixed, Non-Customizable Sections: Flexibility is key in a guiding principles template. Avoid templates that don't allow you to modify sections to fit your evolving principles and practices.

Choosing the right template involves looking for one that facilitates clarity and alignment with your organization's unique values and goals, without adding unnecessary complexity.

1Vision to values

Vision to Values is a framework developed by Jeff Weiner, Executive Chairman of LinkedIn and Founding Partner of Next Play Ventures. It helps you clearly and efficiently codify your company’s purpose, approach, and ethos.

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2Company Playbook

This digital resource is designed to be your compass through the intricate details of the organization, providing a dynamic platform to explore mission, values, and operational intricacies. With intuitive navigation and interactive features, it's your personalized guide to navigate the unique culture and structure of your company.

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3Company Messaging

Solid company messaging is foundational to consistent positioning. Using this Company Messaging template, you can get all vital info in one place to ensure everyone is telling the same story.

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4Discovery report

📦 What's included?

A simple, generic and duplicable page with pre-filled topics and identical questions for each topic. There are also an introduction to the report and resources to help understand the mindset behind the tools.

🤔 For whom ?

Freshly new employees, managers, companies, HR team…

🧐 What is a discovery report ?

A discovery report is a strategic HR management tool that newcomers complete during their first month in a new context (company, team…).

Long story short, it’s a tool that will help the collaborators and the company because a fresh pair of eyes will take the time to analyze and give feedback on a lot of subjects.

The template here is quit generic so you should try to adapt it to your context, let’s say you’re working in a IT team: you should then try and list topics that make the day-to-day of any engineer.

It was made to allow your collaborators or yourself to write down your thoughts during this oh-so important period that is your onboarding. ”Onboarding” is too broad a word, you can actually use this template whenever your become a newcomer. Here are a few examples, a member of your team or yourself can be:

newly hired in a company,

changing team within the same company,

choosing a new career in your current company and now have a new context, new team mates, a new hierarchy…

You get it, this template is made to help in the process of writing first impressions on many topics.

🤑 What is the value of a report ?

To a newcomer 👶

It’s a chance to have their opinion heard, an opportunity to have a critical look at existing processes/habits and to level their expectations.

To a manager 💼

The hiring process generally does not give you a clear understanding of the person that stands in front of you. Listening to the report of someone can help you better grasp their priorities, their strengths and even areas of improvements.

Apart from that, it will help you create a bond with this person, his or her voice has been heard, which is always positive.

Once the report has been presented to you, you can also encourage its author to present it to your team, it probably can be tweaked a bit in case of there being a bit of finger pointing, but generally speaking, allowing your new managees to express his or her opinion to your team could drive your entire team to have an epiphany and even overcome bottlenecks

To a company 🏢

It’s a beautiful continuous improvement tool. Collaborators tend to get used to their working environment and will have a hard time taking a step back sometime. Since they have been doing it for a long time, they can no longer objectively assess processes and sometimes situations even.

Hiring a new employee is a great opportunity to collect new and fresh impressions. This allow the company to highlight its strength and to reveal what is in need of an improvement.

🙋‍♀️ What are the topics ?

Topics are very generic:

the company,

the onboarding,

the department,

the team,

your job,

and your manager.

But feel free to add anything that make sense. At the end of the page a button is here to create new topics.

🙋‍♂️ What are the questions ?

Those are the same for each topic and keep in mind that you can add or remove topics depending on your context:

😀 What fits your expectations perfectly

🤩 What surprised you in a good way or exceeded your expectations

😔 What you were disappointed about or didn’t reach your expectations

😵‍💫 What you were confused about

🤓 Your suggestions

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5Company Values Hub

This template is designed as a central hub for communicating and reinforcing company values to employees. It starts by stating the company's mission and values. It’s especially useful for onboarding, continual cultural alignment, and ensuring a cohesive understanding of values among team members.

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6Company Wiki & Guideline

Establish a comprehensive company wiki with our Notion template. Capture your organization's vision, mission, guidelines, and logo in one centralized platform. Facilitate easy access and understanding for all team members, fostering alignment with your company's core values and goals.

Company Wiki & Guideline님의 템플릿 미리보기

7Company Knowledge Base

This Notion template was created out of a need for building simplicity, depth and an organised business. This space is where you can keep all of your company’s Manuals, SOPs, Policies, and Library simplifying onboarding, policies and workflows. We use this database in Zen Mondays’ dashboard and it is perfect for any type of business.

Company Knowledge Base님의 템플릿 미리보기

Closing Thoughts

Implementing these templates can streamline your workflow and enhance productivity. They are designed to help you organize your principles effectively, saving you time and effort.

Start using these templates today to see immediate improvements in your project management and decision-making processes. They're not just tools, but a way to bring clarity and focus to your work.

What is a Principle Articulation?

Principle Articulation refers to the clear expression and documentation of foundational principles that guide decision-making within an organization.

What is a Consensus Alignment?

Consensus Alignment is the process of ensuring that all stakeholders agree with and support the guiding principles, promoting uniformity in strategic directions.

What is a Principle-Centric Evaluation?

Principle-Centric Evaluation involves assessing business strategies and actions based on how well they align with the established guiding principles.

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