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IN THIS ISSUE

DEEPTHINK

Most companies have values written on their walls or websites. Words that sound impressive, like “integrity,” “excellence,” and “teamwork”. But here’s the uncomfortable question: do these values actually change how your team behaves every day?

In most cases, the answer is no. These values are decorative words that nobody uses to make real decisions. When a difficult customer gets angry, your team doesn’t think about your “excellence” value. When a mistake happens, they don’t reference your “integrity” poster. When priorities conflict, they don’t consult your “teamwork” principle. They just wait for you to tell them what to do.

Real company values aren’t nice words on walls. They’re practical tools that help your team make good decisions, especially when you’re not there to guide them. Values-driven leadership, as emphasised by leaders like Ibukun Awosika, former Chairman at First Bank of Nigeria, empowers teams to make the right calls even when the founder isn’t in the room.

Moving beyond wall posters means making your values come alive in daily work. Here are three steps to build company values that actually drive behaviour instead of just sounding good.

The biggest mistake companies make is copying values from successful businesses or choosing values that sound impressive rather than authentic. Your company doesn’t need the same values as Google, Apple, or any other admired organisation. You need values that reflect what actually makes your business work well, what guides your best decisions, and what your top performers naturally embody.

Finding your authentic company values requires an honest examination of your business at its best. Start by identifying three situations where your business handled things perfectly. Maybe you resolved a customer complaint in a way that turned an angry client into a loyal advocate. Perhaps your team worked together brilliantly on a tight deadline and delivered exceptional results. Or you made a difficult decision that felt right, even though it was costly or unpopular.

Write down what made these moments successful and look for the principles that guided each action. Was it putting customer needs first, even when inconvenient? Was it transparent communication during pressure? Was it refusing to compromise quality for speed? The patterns you see in these best moments form the foundation of your company’s real values.

Next, ask your best team members what they think makes your company special. What do they tell their friends about working here? What would they never want to change about how you do business? What do they believe sets you apart from competitors or previous employers? Their answers will surprise you with insights you might not have seen yourself because they experience your culture daily, while you’re often focused on operations and strategy. The characteristics they consistently mention reveal your actual values in action rather than the values you wish you had.

Finally, examine times when things went wrong. What values, if followed consistently, would have prevented those problems? Sometimes your values become clearest when you see what happens without them. If a project failed because people didn’t communicate openly about problems, perhaps radical transparency is one of your core values. If you lost a customer because someone cut corners, maybe uncompromising quality is essential to who you are. These failures illuminate the principles that need to guide future decisions.

Once you identify potential core values, test them rigorously. Do they actually help you make real business decisions, or are they just inspiring concepts? Do they feel authentically true to who you are as a business, or do they sound like what you think you should be? Do they guide behaviour in ways that genuinely help your customers and your team succeed? If your values pass these tests, you’ve found principles worth building your culture around. If they don’t, keep searching for what’s authentically yours.

Once you’ve identified your real values, they must become the lens through which you evaluate every person in your organisation.

This starts with hiring, where most companies focus almost exclusively on skills and experience while treating values as a secondary nice-to-have consideration. This approach guarantees you’ll hire people who can do the job technically, but damage your cultural behaviour.

Transform your interview process to prioritise cultural fit alongside capability. Ask questions that reveal whether candidates naturally share your values rather than just affirming them when asked directly. If one of your core values is taking ownership, ask candidates to describe a time when they had to fix a problem that wasn’t their fault or their responsibility. If you value radical transparency, ask them to tell you about a time they delivered difficult news to a superior or client.

Pay special attention to situations that test character and decision-making. Present realistic scenarios from your business and ask how candidates would handle them. For example, if customer service is one of your core values, describe a demanding customer situation and listen to how they think through the response. Their answer reveals whether they naturally prioritise customer satisfaction, follow rules rigidly, protect the company’s interests first, or find creative solutions. There’s no universally right answer, but there is an answer that aligns with your values and answers that don’t. A person might be technically excellent at their job tasks but terrible for your culture if their natural decision-making approach conflicts with your core principles.

Extend values assessment into performance reviews so they’re more than words on paper. Don’t just measure what people accomplish each quarter or year. Measure how they accomplish it with equal weight. Did they deliver results by collaborating generously or by hoarding information? Did they meet deadlines by maintaining quality standards or by cutting corners? Did they handle setbacks with accountability or by blaming others? These behavioural assessments matter as much as outcome metrics because they determine whether success is sustainable and culturally healthy or temporary and damaging.

Reward team members who embody your values, even when their results aren’t always perfect, because values-aligned behaviour builds long-term cultural strength, while short-term results-focused behaviour can destroy it.

Conversely, coach or remove people who achieve good results while damaging your culture through behaviour that violates core values. This sends a powerful message that values aren’t optional guidelines to ignore when convenient. They’re fundamental requirements that define how success must be achieved in your business. When your team sees you making these tough calls consistently, they understand that you’re serious about values rather than just talking about them.

Identifying values and hiring for them creates the foundation, but real cultural integration happens through daily reinforcement in decisions and storytelling. Your values should answer specific questions that your team faces routinely. How do we treat difficult customers who are unreasonable but profitable? What do we do when we make mistakes that customers haven’t noticed yet? How do we prioritise our time when everything seems urgent and important? When someone offers us a shortcut that compromises quality but saves money? When your team knows the answers to these questions based on your values, they stop waiting for permission on every decision and start acting like owners who understand what matters.

Make values explicit in your regular team meetings whenever you discuss challenges or opportunities. When facing a difficult decision, don’t just announce what you’ve decided. Walk through how your values guided that decision, so your team learns the framework you use. When someone brings you a problem, ask them how they think your values should guide the response before giving your opinion. This develops their values-based decision-making muscles so they can handle similar situations independently next time.

Celebrate and share stories of team members living your values, especially stories that required sacrifice or difficult choices. These stories become the legends that teach new employees and reinforce existing ones about what success looks like in your company. If someone turned down a lucrative opportunity because it conflicted with your integrity value, tell that story publicly and explain why you’re proud of that decision. If a team member stayed late to fix a mistake that customers would never have discovered, highlight that as an example of your commitment to quality. If someone had a difficult conversation with a colleague to maintain transparency rather than avoiding conflict, recognise that courage publicly.

These stories accomplish what value statements on walls never can. They provide concrete examples of abstract principles in action. They show that values aren’t just for easy situations but especially for hard ones. They demonstrate that living your values has real consequences, both positive (recognition, respect, advancement) and negative (coaching out people who violate them regardless of results). Over time, these stories accumulate into a rich cultural narrative that new employees absorb quickly and existing employees reference constantly.

Use your values proactively to prevent problems rather than only reactively to fix them. When planning a new initiative, ask how it aligns with your core values before executing. When considering a partnership, evaluate whether the potential partner shares your values. When expanding into new markets or products, assess whether you can maintain your values at larger scale. This forward-looking values application prevents cultural erosion as your business grows and changes.

The difference between meaningless wall posters and powerful cultural values is simple: real values change behaviour daily. They guide decisions when you’re not in the room. They help your team navigate difficult situations confidently. They create consistency in how your business operates, regardless of who’s handling a particular situation.

Building this kind of values-driven culture requires discovering what’s authentically yours rather than copying others, making values the primary filter for who joins and stays in your organisation, and integrating values into daily decisions through explicit discussion and powerful storytelling. None of this happens quickly or easily, but the result is a team that thinks and acts like owners because they share the principles that guide ownership decisions.

Thinking about transforming your business into a self-managing business where your values driven employee’s behaves even when you’re not watching?

Order our latest ebook on Building A Self-Managing Business to discover a comprehensive guide on building a values-driven culture that makes it easy for your business to grow and thrive in your absence.

Don’t miss out, order a copy today!

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