Defining your values is a chance to make a bold declaration about your organization:
- This is who we are.
- This is what we stand for.
- This is how we do what we do.
- This is how we’re different.
Done well, it becomes a rallying cry for your team and a clear signal to the outside world about what makes you unique. Done badly, it becomes a laminated poster that nobody reads and nobody lives.
Here is a quick test. Without looking them up, can you name your organization’s values? Now the harder question: Can your team? For most organizations, this is where the room goes quiet. The values exist. They just aren’t remembered, and what isn’t remembered can’t guide a single decision.
It usually isn’t that leaders don’t care. It’s that the words they chose could belong to anyone. Integrity. Excellence. Innovation. Teamwork. Customer Service. They sit on thousands of walls across thousands of offices, and they do almost nothing.
Why Generic Values Fail
Generic values fail for reasons that compound. First, they don’t differentiate, because a value that could apply to any company in any industry tells your team nothing about what makes this one worth showing up for. Second, they aren’t actionable, because “Excellence” offers no real guidance when a deadline collides with a quality standard. Third, they breed cynicism, because the moment people sense a gap between the words on the wall and how decisions are made, trust starts to erode. And fourth, they aren’t memorable, which quietly undoes all the rest. The result is a values exercise that costs real time, produces a nice poster, and changes nothing.
The Shift: From Writing Values to Crafting Them
The fix for forgettable values isn’t better writing. It’s better thinking and a little courage. Specifically, it’s the willingness to make your values genuinely yours: specific, memorable, and built for the people who live by them. This is what creativity is for. The most powerful values don’t sound like a corporate handbook. They sound like the team, in the team’s own language. They are meaningful; they are true; and above all, they are remembered.
What this Looks Like in Practice
Consider Starbound, a space technology company. Instead of reaching for the usual list, they named each of their values after a famous space mission:
Each name works on two levels: a milestone in space exploration, and a principle the team lives by. New Horizons speaks to building a future where space benefits everyone. Pathfinder is about breaking hard problems into manageable steps and seeing opportunity where others see obstacles. These are not off-the-shelf words. They are unmistakably Starbound.
Now consider a very different kind of business. Environmental consultancy e2m rooted their values in the natural world they work in every day:
“Flock” makes “team” sound more like “caring environmental family.” “Straight and Tall” reflects an upright tree, standing for honesty and integrity. “Light-Hearted” makes it clear that fun is an essential part of their culture. A space-tech firm and an environmental consultancy, worlds apart, did exactly the same thing. They found values that are authentic and true to their team.
From Words to Behavior
A value only comes alive when it shapes what people do. The bridge is behavior. A useful exercise is to ask the team, for each value, what they will always do and what they will never do. Those answers become the behaviors that bring the value to life, turning an abstract word into a practical guide for the choices that matter, especially the hard ones. When that connection is strong, something shifts. People stop asking, “What should I do here?” and start saying, “I know what we do here.”
Start on the inside. Build your values for the inside first: how your team treats each other, how they work, what they hold the line on when no manager is in the room. Get that right before you ever turn the same values outward. Defining the behaviors that bring each value to life is a craft in itself, and it is the step most teams skip.
Values as a Differentiator
Once the internal foundation is solid, your values become something you also can show the world. And when so many organizations look and sound alike, that matters more every year. Values with heart, with humanity, with the unmistakable sense of real people standing behind them, are increasingly rare and increasingly valuable. They tell customers what working with you feels like. They attract the people who belong with you and gently repel the ones who don’t. That is a competitive edge, and it doesn’t come from a louder voice. It comes from a truer one.
Your team deserves values they don’t just recognize on a wall but live by every day and, in time, love. They become the heart of how your team works and a true reflection of who they are.
The organizations that get this right don’t start with what sounds impressive. They start with who they genuinely are. Then they find the words that truly capture it.
That is the difference between values that decorate and values that define.
