Guiding Principles

Cisco's three guiding principles, Think Really Big, Play to Win, and Drive Durable Growth, needed to be more than aspirational language. For a workforce spanning thousands of employees across the globe, abstract values are easy to acknowledge and easy to forget.

The design challenge was making them real: clear enough to guide daily decisions, specific enough to matter in performance conversations, and accessible through the tools employees already use.

The principles were translated into a tiered behavioral framework, with grade-level expectations giving every employee a concrete picture of what each principle looks like in practice for their role. Rather than a one-time campaign or standalone document, the experience was integrated directly into the P&C ecosystem, surfaced through the P&C Assistant, embedded in performance assessments, and supported by skills resources and reflection prompts aligned to each principle.

The goal was to close the gap between values and behavior: from something employees read once to something they actively reference, discuss, and are assessed against.