# Why Your Company's Values Are Just Words (And How to Actually Make Them Mean Something) **Related Reading:** [More Insight](https://skillcoaching.bigcartel.com/blog) | [Further Reading](https://ethiofarmers.com/blog) | [Other Resources](https://managementwise.bigcartel.com/posts) I was sitting in yet another corporate boardroom last month, staring at a beautifully framed poster proclaiming "INTEGRITY • INNOVATION • RESPECT" while the CEO explained why they couldn't give their cleaning staff a pay rise during record profit quarters. The irony was so thick you could have cut it with a knife from the catered lunch spread that probably cost more than what those cleaners make in a week. After twenty-three years of working with Australian businesses—from tiny family operations in regional Queensland to ASX-listed behemoths in Sydney—I've seen this pattern more times than I care to count. Companies spend thousands on values workshops, hire consultants to craft the perfect mission statement, then laminate these beautiful documents that become as meaningful as yesterday's weather forecast. Here's what nobody wants to admit: your company values aren't working because they were never meant to work in the first place. ## The Great Values Charade Most organisations approach values like they're ordering from a corporate virtue menu. "We'll have one serving of integrity, a side of innovation, and could you make that respect extra crispy?" They pick words that sound impressive in annual reports and look good on recruitment websites, completely disconnected from the daily reality of how business actually gets done. I remember working with a manufacturing company in Adelaide whose values poster prominently featured "SAFETY FIRST" in bold red letters. Beautiful sentiment. Shame about the broken safety equipment in the warehouse and the manager who'd been pressuring workers to skip safety checks to meet deadlines. When I pointed this out, the HR director's response was priceless: "But we do care about safety! It's right there in our values!" This is the fundamental problem. [Companies treat values as aspirational marketing copy](https://www.alkhazana.net/2025/07/16/why-firms-ought-to-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/) rather than operational principles. They're not guides for decision-making; they're pretty decorations that make everyone feel good about themselves. ## Why Most Values Fail Before They Start The traditional approach to developing company values is fundamentally flawed. Here's how it usually works: senior leadership disappears into an off-site retreat (usually somewhere expensive with good wine), brainstorms a list of admirable qualities, then comes back to announce these values to staff like Moses descending from Mount Sinai. The problem? Values created in isolation from actual workplace reality are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Real values emerge from what people actually do when nobody's watching, not from what executives think sounds impressive. [They're revealed in the decisions made during crisis moments](https://sewazoom.com/the-role-of-professional-development-courses-in-a-changing-job-market/), in how conflicts get resolved, in who gets promoted and who gets performance-managed out the door. I worked with a tech startup in Melbourne whose founders spent weeks crafting values around "collaboration" and "transparency." Six months later, they were secretly shopping the company around to buyers without telling their employees. The values didn't fail because they were wrong—they failed because they were never genuinely held in the first place. ### The Honesty Test Want to know if your values are real? Try this exercise I use with clients. For each stated value, write down the three most recent decisions your company made that demonstrated this value in action. Then write down three recent decisions that contradicted it. If you're struggling with the first list and finding the second one depressingly easy, congratulations—you've just discovered why your staff roll their eyes every time someone mentions the company values. ## What Real Values Look Like in Practice Authentic company values aren't motivational posters; they're behavioural predictors. They tell you how decisions will be made when there's pressure, uncertainty, or competing priorities. [Real values create consistent patterns of behaviour](https://croptech.com.sa/why-companies-ought-to-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/) that employees can rely on, even when circumstances change. Take Patagonia, for instance. Their environmental values aren't just marketing—they've turned down profitable opportunities that conflicted with their environmental stance. When they sued the US government over environmental protections, that wasn't a PR stunt; it was their values in action. Compare that to companies whose "people-first" values evaporate the moment quarterly numbers look shaky. Values that disappear under pressure weren't really values at all—they were just hopeful thinking. The best organisations I've worked with have values that are immediately recognisable in their day-to-day operations. You can see them in hiring decisions, in how mistakes are handled, in resource allocation choices. These values might not always sound impressive in marketing materials, but they're lived experiences rather than aspirational statements. ## The Australian Values Disconnect There's something particularly frustrating about how many Australian companies approach values. We're supposedly a culture that values straight talking and authenticity, yet our corporate values statements read like they were written by the same committee of American consultants who designed every other company's values. [The disconnect between Australian workplace culture and corporate-speak values](https://mauiwear.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) creates this weird cognitive dissonance. Employees are expected to embrace values like "excellence" and "synergy" while working in environments where the actual operating principles are more like "get it done without making waves" and "don't be the tall poppy." I've seen Australian companies adopt American-style values frameworks that completely ignore local workplace dynamics. "Aggressive growth mindset" might work in Silicon Valley, but it often crashes against the collaborative, egalitarian expectations of Australian teams. ## Building Values That Actually Matter So how do you create values that aren't just expensive wall art? Start by admitting what your real values currently are, not what you wish they were. Most companies have unspoken values that actually drive behaviour. Things like "avoid conflict at all costs," "preserve senior management's egos," or "appearance matters more than substance." These implicit values are often more powerful than the official ones because they're consistently reinforced through actions and consequences. The goal isn't to completely replace these with shiny new values—it's to evolve them into something more intentional and productive. [If your current implicit value is "don't rock the boat,"](https://last2u.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) perhaps the evolved version becomes "thoughtful dissent strengthens decisions." ### The Three-Month Reality Check Here's a practical approach that actually works: instead of starting with aspirational values, spend three months documenting what values your organisation currently demonstrates through its actions. Track decisions, observe behaviours, note what gets rewarded and what gets punished. This isn't about judgment—it's about honest assessment. Maybe you'll discover that your real values include things like "efficiency over perfection" or "loyalty over competence." These might not sound inspiring, but at least they're authentic starting points. Once you understand your actual operating values, you can have honest conversations about which ones serve you well and which ones need upgrading. [This approach creates values that feel genuine because they're based in reality rather than aspiration](https://ethiofarmers.com/the-position-of-professional-development-courses-in-a-changing-job-market/). ## Making Values Operational The test of real values isn't whether they sound good in mission statements—it's whether they provide useful guidance during difficult decisions. Values should help resolve conflicts, guide resource allocation, and shape hiring decisions. I remember working with a family business in Perth whose stated values included "work-life balance." Sounds reasonable, right? But when we dug deeper, we discovered this meant different things to different people. For some, it meant flexible hours. For others, it meant not working weekends. For senior staff, it sometimes meant expecting junior staff to cover extra hours so senior people could maintain their balance. The solution wasn't to abandon work-life balance as a value—it was to define what it actually meant in practice. They developed specific guidelines about after-hours communication, workload distribution, and coverage expectations. Suddenly, "work-life balance" became an operational principle rather than a feel-good slogan. Values need to be specific enough to guide behaviour but flexible enough to adapt to different situations. "Customer service excellence" is too vague to be useful. "We resolve customer complaints within 24 hours, even if the solution isn't perfect" gives people something they can actually act on. ## The Leadership Values Test Want to know if your values are real? Watch how your leaders behave when they think nobody's watching. Values that don't consistently show up in leadership behaviour are just performance art. [The most damaging thing leaders can do is talk about values they don't personally demonstrate](https://momotour999.com/why-corporations-should-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/). Employees have excellent hypocrisy detectors, and once they conclude that values are just PR exercises, it becomes nearly impossible to rebuild credibility. This doesn't mean leaders need to be perfect—it means they need to be consistently authentic about what they actually value. If efficiency is genuinely more important to you than consensus-building, own that. Your team will respect honest priorities more than false claims about valuing collaboration while making unilateral decisions. ## The Values Evolution Process Real values change as organisations grow and face new challenges. The values that served a startup with five employees might not work for the same company when it has fifty employees and regulatory compliance requirements. Smart organisations regularly review whether their values still serve their current reality. This isn't about changing values whenever they become inconvenient—it's about ensuring they remain relevant and actionable as circumstances evolve. I worked with a consulting firm whose "entrepreneurial spirit" value made perfect sense when they were a scrappy startup competing against established players. As they became more established themselves, this value started creating internal chaos as everyone tried to be an entrepreneur within the organisation. They evolved it to "calculated innovation," which maintained the spirit while acknowledging their new reality as a more mature business. ## The Bottom Line on Values Here's what I've learned after two decades of watching companies struggle with values: they work when they're authentic, specific, and consistently applied. They fail when they're aspirational, generic, or selectively enforced. Your company's real values are already operating—they're visible in every decision, every promotion, every crisis response. [The question isn't whether you have values; it's whether you're willing to acknowledge what they actually are](https://submityourpr.com/why-companies-ought-to-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/) and decide if they're the values you want to keep. Most companies aren't ready for this level of honesty. They prefer the comfortable fiction that their aspirational values statements represent reality. But for organisations serious about creating cultures that attract talent, drive performance, and survive challenges, there's no substitute for authentic values that actually guide behaviour. Stop decorating your walls with empty promises. Start building values that mean something. Your people—and your bottom line—will thank you for it. The choice is yours: keep pretending your current values approach is working, or do the hard work of building something real. Just don't expect different results from the same tired process. After all, insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different outcomes. And frankly, most corporate values initiatives qualify as exactly that kind of insanity.