The Spokes: What Should Stay the Same While Business Changes?
- 2 days ago
- 18 min read
Part I of the W⁵ Plus Framework for the Solopreneur
A discussion during our recent professional development conference got me thinking about something I had probably taken for granted for years.
We were discussing organizational values and the possibility that values might be added, removed, or changed as an organization develops. I understood the reasoning being offered, but I kept returning to a basic question:
If our core values help define who we are, why would we expect them to change simply because the environment around us changes?
That question stayed with me because I do not think of core values as another line in a strategic plan. I place them much closer to mission. Mission helps define why the business exists. Values help define who the business is while pursuing that mission. If either can be routinely changed because circumstances are different this year than they were last year, I begin to wonder what makes them foundational in the first place.
That does not mean I believe a mission statement or a set of values should be preserved word for word forever. Language can become dated. Something may have been poorly expressed when it was first written. Two stated values may overlap. An owner may eventually realize that something called a value was really an aspiration, priority, or preferred behavior rather than a principle that actually guided decisions. Revisiting the language can therefore be useful without necessarily changing the underlying belief.
Businesses can also experience extraordinary changes. Ownership can change. An industry can be transformed. A company can merge with another organization. A family business may pass to another generation. A solopreneur may eventually build a company so different from the one originally envisioned that its original mission no longer describes why the organization exists. Those circumstances may legitimately force the owner to reconsider things that were once assumed to be permanent.
What I question is something different: the assumption that because businesses must change, everything within the business should be equally available for change.
Businesses unquestionably need adaptability. Customers change, technology changes, competitors change, costs change, regulations change, and industries themselves can move in directions nobody anticipated when a company was started. The owner's circumstances and ambitions may also change. A business that refuses to respond to any of that will eventually find itself trying to operate in a world that has moved beyond it.
The more useful question, at least to me, is not whether the business should change. It is where that change should occur and whether all parts of the business should be expected to change at the same rate.
That question eventually led me beyond the original discussion of values and into a broader way of thinking about the solopreneur.
Why This Matters More for the Solopreneur
A large organization can distribute thinking and decision-making across many people. A board may consider purpose and long-term direction. Executives may develop strategy. Managers may establish objectives and track performance. Finance personnel monitor the numbers. Marketing personnel study customers and competitors. Operations personnel determine how the work gets done.
The solopreneur may have one person doing all of it.
The owner determines why the business exists and what it should become. The owner decides how customers will be treated, what standards will be maintained, which opportunities deserve attention, where money should be invested, what risks are acceptable, and what compromises are not. That same person may answer the telephone, make the sale, perform the work, order supplies, collect receivables, maintain the website, reconcile the bank account, prepare tomorrow's schedule, and turn off the lights at the end of the day.
There may be no executive team preserving institutional memory or management layer translating broad ideas into daily decisions. There may be nobody else in the business asking whether a new opportunity actually fits the company's purpose, whether a difficult decision is consistent with its values, or whether today's activity is moving the owner toward the future that was originally envisioned.
For the solopreneur, the distance between the person and the business can be very small. That makes questions about mission and values more important, not less, because the character of the business is often being established through the owner's daily decisions long before anything is written into a formal statement.
A customer dispute reveals what the owner values. A difficult month reveals which standards are negotiable. A lucrative opportunity reveals whether every dollar is considered a good dollar. A mistake reveals how the owner views accountability. In other words, the business develops an identity whether the owner consciously defines one or not.
That is why I believe mission, values, vision, objectives, and timing need to be more than business-planning vocabulary for the solopreneur. They need to function as practical questions that help the owner think through real decisions.
That is where the W⁵ Framework begins.
The Five Spokes
The W⁵ Framework uses five familiar questions:
Why, Who, Where, What, and When.
I think of these as five spokes within a larger machine. Each performs a different function, and each helps keep the business aligned with the direction the owner has chosen.
I am not using the traditional Five W's literally. In this framework, Who is not primarily asking who the customer is, and Where is not asking for the location of the business. The questions are used conceptually to organize the things a solopreneur needs to understand about the business itself.
Why connects to Mission and asks why the business exists.
Who connects to Values and asks who the business is, particularly what principles define how it will operate.
Where connects to Vision and asks where the owner is trying to take the business.
What connects to Objectives and asks what must be accomplished if that future is going to become possible.
When connects to Milestones and Review and asks when those things should happen and when the owner will stop to evaluate whether the business is still moving in the intended direction.
Those five questions give the business orientation. They help the owner understand the purpose of the business, the character it is intended to have, the future being pursued, the outcomes required to reach that future, and the timing attached to those outcomes.
What matters for this discussion is that the five spokes do not carry the same expectation of permanence.
That difference is fundamental to the framework.
Why: Mission Defines Why the Business Exists
For purposes of the W⁵ Framework, I use mission in its most fundamental sense:
Why does this business exist?
That is different from asking what the business sells, what industry it operates in, how much money the owner wants to make, or how many employees the company may someday have.
Revenue matters. Profit matters. A business that cannot eventually generate enough revenue to sustain itself will not remain a business for very long. But making money alone does not explain what the business is meant to be or why the owner chose this particular way of earning it.
Consider three contractors serving the same market.
One owner may view the business primarily as a way to build long-term financial security for the family. Another may have started because rural customers in the area struggled to find dependable skilled tradespeople. A third may want to create stable skilled-trade careers for people who otherwise have limited local employment opportunities.
All three businesses may buy from the same suppliers, install similar products, charge comparable prices, and compete for many of the same customers. From the outside, they may look almost identical.
Their reasons for operating the business can still be very different.
That difference becomes useful when an opportunity appears.
Suppose the contractor whose mission centers on serving underserved rural customers is offered an opportunity to become a regional distributor for a major manufacturer. The financial projections look attractive, and the opportunity may be excellent. Mission does not automatically produce a no. What it should do is force the owner to ask whether the opportunity helps fulfill the purpose of the business in a different way or begins pulling the company toward something fundamentally different.
Becoming a distributor might improve access to products customers currently struggle to obtain. It might complement the existing service business and create a stronger regional presence. On the other hand, it might gradually consume so much time, capital, and attention that direct service to the communities the owner originally intended to serve becomes secondary.
Mission gives the owner a reference point for evaluating that distinction.
Without one, revenue can easily become the only test of whether an opportunity belongs in the business. With one, the owner can ask whether the opportunity makes sense not only financially, but in relation to why the business exists.
The U.S. Small Business Administration describes the business plan as a roadmap for structuring, operating, and growing a company and includes mission among the foundational information in a traditional plan. I think that roadmap is important, but mission sits above it. The route can change many times without necessarily changing the reason the trip began.
The roadmap can change. The reason for taking the trip should be considerably more durable.
A route to the customer may stop working. A market may prove smaller than expected. A product may need to change. Technology may alter the way the business delivers value. Expansion may require an entirely different operating model. Any of those discoveries could require substantial adjustments without changing the reason the owner believes the business should exist.
This is why I generally tell small-business owners that mission should not routinely change. I do not mean mission is incapable of changing. I mean the reason for changing it should be more significant than a new competitor, a disappointing quarter, a different marketing channel, or an emerging technology.
Ordinary business change should usually be handled somewhere else in the system. Mission should help the owner navigate those changes rather than moving every time the environment does.
Who: Values Define Who We Are
The question that started this entire line of thinking sits here:
Who are we?
Values help answer that question.
For the solopreneur, values can be especially personal because the character of the owner frequently becomes the character of the business. If the owner believes customers should be treated honestly, that belief affects the company. If commitments should be honored even when doing so becomes inconvenient, that affects the company. If the owner believes poor workmanship should never knowingly be passed to a customer simply to protect a margin, that belief influences purchasing, pricing, quality control, customer service, and perhaps even the type of work the company is willing to accept.
This is why I do not view values as decorative words or as a list of desirable characteristics chosen because they sound appropriate on a website.
Values establish boundaries around acceptable behavior.
There may be many legitimate ways to price a service, negotiate a contract, advertise a product, resolve a complaint, or compete for a customer. Values help the owner determine when normal business discretion has reached a boundary that should be difficult to cross merely because another choice would be faster, easier, or more profitable.
Those boundaries become most visible when the business is under pressure.
Honesty is easy when telling the truth costs nothing. The value becomes meaningful when admitting a problem may cost the sale. Quality is easy to celebrate when margins are comfortable. The value becomes meaningful when a cheaper material could solve an immediate cash-flow problem but produce work the owner would not be willing to stand behind. Accountability sounds admirable until accepting responsibility means absorbing the cost of correcting a mistake.
That leads me to a question I find much more useful than asking an owner to choose several attractive words from a worksheet:
Would I continue to honor this principle if honoring it cost me something?
The cost does not always have to be financial. It may involve time, convenience, embarrassment, admitting a mistake, losing an opportunity, or accepting responsibility when shifting the blame would be easier. The important part is whether the principle continues to influence the owner's choice once there is some incentive to ignore it.
That is where values begin separating themselves from preferences. A preference is something I favor when circumstances allow it. A core value should continue influencing behavior when circumstances make that value inconvenient.
Values tell me what I am unwilling to become merely to succeed.
That does not mean a business owner must reject compromise. Business constantly requires tradeoffs involving price, time, scope, capacity, growth, staffing, financing, and risk. A customer may need a lower-cost option. A project may require a different schedule. The owner may have to choose between two imperfect alternatives.
The distinction is that a normal tradeoff should not require the owner to cross a boundary the business has already said matters. If honesty is genuinely a core value, the owner may negotiate price, scope, delivery, or terms, but deliberate deception should remain outside the available choices. If workmanship is a core value, the owner may offer a less expensive solution, but knowingly providing defective work should not become an acceptable way to protect a margin.
That is why core values can function as practical decision filters rather than ceremonial statements.
Maintenance Is Not Replacement
This is where I think conversations about changing values require more precision.
Changing the language used to describe a value is not necessarily the same as changing the value itself.
Suppose an owner has used the word Integrity for years but later realizes that the behaviors being described are better communicated through the word Trust. The wording changed, but the underlying principle may not have changed at all.
Two stated values may also overlap so substantially that combining them creates greater clarity. A business may discover that a value statement uses vague language that employees or customers interpret differently. An owner may realize that something listed as a value has never actually influenced a meaningful decision.
Those are different situations, and I would describe many of them as maintenance, refinement, clarification, or correction rather than evidence that values naturally need to be replaced over time.
The opposite can happen as well. A previously unnamed principle may have guided the owner for years before anyone thought to call it a core value. Naming that principle does not necessarily mean the business acquired a new value during a planning exercise. It may mean the owner finally found the words to describe something that had been there all along.
Changing a genuine core value is a much more consequential act because it means saying, in effect, this principle used to help define who we were, and now it no longer does.
That can happen. I simply do not believe it should be treated as routine housekeeping.
Collins and Porras make a related distinction in their work on enduring organizations. They argue that core purpose and core values can remain stable even while strategies and practices continuously adapt to a changing world. Their argument is not that successful organizations resist change; it is that the organization can preserve a stable core while allowing extensive change around it.
There is also a legitimate counterview. John Coleman has argued that organizations should periodically reconsider whether stated missions, visions, and values still fit present realities. I think that perspective is useful because it reminds us not to confuse permanence with neglect.
Where I differ is in the question I believe the review should begin with.
I would not begin by asking which values should be replaced. I would begin by asking whether the stated values still accurately describe who the business is, whether they are visible in actual decisions, and whether the owner is still willing to honor them when doing so creates a cost.
That is inspection.
That is maintenance.
Replacement should require a stronger reason.
Where: Vision Defines the Destination
Vision is where I become much more comfortable with change because vision answers a different question:
Where are we trying to go?
A person may start an electrical contracting business intending to build a respected local residential operation. Five years later, commercial opportunities may become more attractive. Ten years later, the owner may envision operating throughout several counties or building an organization capable of running without daily dependence on the founder.
The underlying mission may still make sense, and the values may still accurately describe who the business is, even though the desired destination has changed considerably. I believe that is exactly what vision should be capable of doing.
A vision should be stable enough to create direction without becoming so rigid that the owner feels obligated to pursue a future that no longer makes sense. Owners learn as they operate the business, markets reveal information that was unavailable at startup, technology changes what is possible, and personal ambitions evolve as circumstances change.
A future that looked desirable five years ago may no longer be the future the owner wants.
That does not automatically indicate inconsistency. It may indicate that the owner has learned enough to choose a better destination.
This distinction is especially important for the solopreneur because business culture often treats growth as though it were the inevitable definition of success.
More revenue, more employees, more locations, more territory, and more market share may all be valid aspirations. They are not the only legitimate visions.
One owner may envision five locations and fifty employees. Another may want a one-person practice that produces an excellent income and complete professional independence. Another may want to reach a level of financial stability that allows a four-day workweek. Another may choose to remain within one county because local relationships and community involvement matter more than expansion. Someone else may want to build a business that can eventually be sold or passed to the next generation.
Those owners are pursuing different destinations, and none becomes automatically superior simply because it creates the largest organization.
Vision should describe the future the owner actually wants, not the future business culture tells the owner he or she is supposed to want.
That is one reason vision should be revisited. The owner needs to periodically ask whether the future being pursued is still worth pursuing and whether it remains consistent with the mission and values that sit closer to the identity of the business.
Changing the destination does not automatically mean abandoning the reason the journey began.
What: Objectives Define What Must Happen
Vision gives the owner a destination, but destinations do not tell us what must happen along the way.
That is the role of What.
"We need to grow."
"We should improve our marketing."
"We want more commercial customers."
"We need to become more efficient."
All of those statements may describe reasonable ambitions, but they remain too broad to manage effectively. The owner cannot easily determine whether "improve our marketing" happened, nor does "grow the business" identify what has to change for growth to occur.
Suppose the vision requires building a commercial HVAC operation within three counties. That future may require an additional service vehicle, two qualified technicians, a preventive-maintenance program, a defined commercial sales process, and a certain number of recurring commercial accounts.
Those are outcomes the owner can pursue, evaluate, and connect to the future the business is trying to create.
There is therefore an important difference between aspiration and objective.
"Grow the business" is an aspiration.
"Secure five recurring commercial accounts" is an objective.
The second statement creates something the owner can evaluate. At the end of the period, five recurring accounts were either secured or they were not. If they were not, the owner has something specific to investigate. Was the target unrealistic? Was the sales activity insufficient? Did the market not respond as expected? Was the strategy itself flawed?
A vague ambition provides very little information when results fall short. A specific objective gives the owner a place to begin learning from what happened.
But measurability alone is not enough.
A business can become very good at measuring things that do not matter.
Suppose the owner establishes an objective to increase sales by 20 percent. That is measurable, but the number still needs a reason to exist. If the vision includes opening a second location and the financial projections show that a certain level of revenue and cash generation is required before expansion becomes sustainable, then the objective has strategic meaning.
If the 20 percent target exists simply because growth sounds desirable, the business may be measuring progress toward an outcome that has never been connected to a larger purpose.
An objective should not exist simply because it can be measured. It should exist because accomplishing it moves the business toward its vision.
That connection is particularly important for the solopreneur because every objective consumes some combination of time, money, attention, and capacity. An objective disconnected from the larger direction can consume all four.
When: Time Creates Accountability
The final W is When, and it addresses a problem that is common in small business: something can remain important for a very long time without ever becoming urgent enough to get done.
A solopreneur may know the business needs another truck, a better website, or a more deliberate effort to pursue commercial customers. All three needs may be legitimate, but none of them requires action simply because the owner recognizes them. Without some relationship to time, an objective can become permanently important and permanently unfinished.
That happens in part because the solopreneur operates in an environment where urgent work constantly competes with important work. A customer needs something today, equipment breaks, an estimate has to go out, payroll is due, or a receivable needs to be collected. The website can wait until next week, the equipment purchase can be reconsidered next month, and the commercial sales effort can begin once things slow down. Unfortunately, things do not always slow down, and an objective that carries no expectation of completion can continue moving farther into the future.
Attaching time changes the character of the objective. Instead of saying the business needs another vehicle, the owner might establish that the vehicle should be acquired by the end of the first quarter. Hiring another technician might become a second-quarter objective. A preventive-maintenance program might need to launch by July, while five recurring commercial accounts might be targeted by December 31.
The difference is not simply the addition of dates. Those dates create points at which the owner has to confront progress. The objective can no longer remain indefinitely in the category of something the business intends to do someday.
A missed milestone does not automatically represent failure. Financing may be delayed, equipment may be unavailable, a qualified employee may not appear, or conditions in the market may change. A more important objective may also emerge after the original timeline was established. The value of the milestone is not that it guarantees the owner can control every circumstance. Its value is that it creates a point at which the owner has to ask why the intended result did not occur and whether the objective, strategy, resources, or timetable needs to change.
Without that point of review, important work can remain unresolved without ever forcing a decision. The truck is still needed. The website still needs work. Commercial customers are still something the owner plans to pursue. Nothing has necessarily been abandoned, but nothing has been completed either.
I also believe When serves a second function that is just as important: it establishes a review cadence for the business itself.
The owner needs more than deadlines for individual objectives. There should also be a deliberate rhythm for examining how the business is performing and whether the assumptions behind the plan still make sense. Cash flow may need to be reviewed monthly. Actual sales may need to be compared with projections on a regular basis. Pricing should be reconsidered when costs or market conditions change, and the assumptions behind the business plan should be revisited often enough that the document continues to describe the business that actually exists.
That review cadence also gives the solopreneur permission to step outside the immediate demands of the business long enough to ask larger questions. Is the current strategy producing the expected results? Are the objectives still relevant? Is the business moving toward the vision the owner established, or has day-to-day activity slowly pulled it in another direction? Does the destination itself still make sense?
A deadline creates accountability for accomplishment. A review cadence creates accountability for management.
The solopreneur needs both. One creates a point at which the owner can determine whether something happened. The other creates a point at which the owner can determine whether what is happening still makes sense.
The Spokes Do Not Change at the Same Speed
At this point, the original question about changing core values begins to fit into a larger system. The five spokes all contribute to the operation of the business, but they do not perform the same function and should not carry the same expectation of change.
Why and Who sit closest to identity. Mission helps define why the business exists, while values help define who the business intends to be while pursuing that mission. Because those questions reach into the identity of the business, I believe they should carry the strongest expectation of durability.
Where serves a different purpose. Vision establishes the future the owner is trying to create, and that future may legitimately evolve as experience, opportunity, market conditions, or personal ambitions change. Revising the destination does not necessarily mean the owner has abandoned the reason for beginning the journey or the principles that guide it.
What moves the framework closer to execution by translating vision into specific outcomes. Objectives should therefore be expected to change when the needs of the vision change or when experience shows that a different result is required to move the business forward.
When introduces both accountability and review. Milestones may need to move when financing is delayed, resources change, or new information affects the original assumptions. Review dates should recur precisely because the owner expects to learn more as the business operates. Unlike mission or core values, the timing associated with objectives is not intended to provide identity. Its purpose is to help manage progress.
The differences among the spokes matter because treating every element as equally permanent can make the business unnecessarily rigid, while treating every element as equally temporary can leave the owner without reliable reference points. A solopreneur needs enough stability to know what the business stands for and enough flexibility to respond intelligently when circumstances change.
That leads to the principle sitting underneath the entire W⁵ Plus Framework:
The farther we move from identity toward execution, the more frequently change should be expected.
That is not an argument against change. It is an argument for understanding where change belongs.
A business needs stable reference points precisely because so much around those reference points will move. Mission and values provide continuity when markets, technologies, strategies, objectives, and circumstances shift. The more durable elements help the owner evaluate the more adaptable ones.
This is also why I think maintenance is a better way to think about mission and values than routine replacement. A well-designed machine does not operate efficiently because every component is constantly exchanged for something newer. It operates because each part is inspected, maintained, kept in alignment, and replaced when there is an actual reason to replace it.
The same principle can apply to the business. Mission and values should be reviewed, tested, clarified, and compared with actual behavior. But review does not require beginning with the assumption that change is necessary.
The five spokes give the owner orientation, but they do not yet create a route.
A solopreneur can understand why the business exists, know the values that should guide it, have a clear vision of the future, identify what must be accomplished, and establish when those things should occur while still having no coherent way of bringing all of those answers together.
That is the next function of the machine.
The spokes need a hub.
In Part II of the W⁵ Plus Framework, I turn to the question that connects them:
How?
References and Further Reading
Collins, James C., and Jerry I. Porras. “Building Your Company's Vision.” Harvard Business Review, September 1996. Their work distinguishes enduring core purpose and core values from strategies and practices that adapt over time.
Coleman, John. “It's Time to Take a Fresh Look at Your Company's Values.” Harvard Business Review, March 28, 2022. Provides a contrasting perspective that encourages organizations to reconsider whether existing mission, vision, and value statements continue to fit present circumstances.
U.S. Small Business Administration. “Write Your Business Plan.” SBA Business Guide. Describes the business plan as a roadmap for structuring, operating, and growing a business and includes mission among the elements of a traditional business plan.
