Desk Lite

Company values are weird.

I get the idea. They are supposed to be inspiring. They’re meant to unite a whole organisation together. On paper, it’s a beautiful concept.
In reality? They often end up as little more than background noise. Aka they are words on a giant poster in the background of the lunch room.

The fantasy

The whole point of company values is to set a standard.

• Trust
• Respect
• Accountability
• Cooperation

These words are supposed to guide every interaction and the way employees behave. The theory goes like this: if everyone embodies the same values, then the organisation will move as one. Just like that movie The Substance, “You are one.” And well we know how that turned out.

It sounds lovely. But let’s face it, values are really only mentioned on Day One of onboarding, maybe in a handbook or a shiny welcome video. After that? They fade into the background. They live on posters in the hallway, in the footer of an email signature, or in the occasional corporate slideshow. Eventually, they become wallpaper. You see them, but you don’t really see them.

That one time values were more of a headache

I once worked somewhere with three values. Simple, neat, easy to remember. Then one day, someone from the global team swooped in and announced that twelve new values were being added. Suddenly, we had fifteen values. Fifteen! When people challenged this, the response was, “Oh, don’t worry, just pick the three you like best.”

Here’s the problem: if I pick three values that resonate with me and you pick three completely different ones, we’re not rowing the boat in the same direction anymore. It stops being a shared compass and turns into a choose-your-own-adventure game. Years later, I hear they’re still struggling with their “values project,” because shockingly, nobody can agree on which ones are the right ones to follow.

HR’s love affair with values

And here’s where I throw HR under the bus. Myself included. Every HR team I’ve been part of has had at least one person (sometimes me, I’ll admit it) who champions the “let’s get everyone to embrace the values” project. It gives you something to do. You run workshops, create posters, organise competitions where staff can “spot values in action.” Maybe you even suggest revamping the values entirely, asking for employee input so people feel they have ownership. Because everyone loves a survey right?

And then two years later? The exact same conversation happens again. “No one’s living the values around here.” Back to square one. Rinse and repeat. Maybe this time an external facilitator is the push needed?

If values really mattered, we wouldn’t need to keep reminding people what they are.

What if we ditched values altogether?

My idea here is that maybe we should stop pretending values are the golden thread that holds everything together. Instead, companies could put their energy into policies and decision frameworks that actually shape business outcomes.

Let’s take health and wellbeing as an example. If that’s genuinely important to a company, then it shouldn’t be a value. It should be a filter for every decision. Sponsorships, partnerships, new products, social media posts and even the suppliers the company gets their supplies from, everything should be checked against that filter. Does this choice promote health and wellbeing? If yes, great. If no, it’s out.

But I hear you say, “that’s a value!” Well, notice how this works even if individuals don’t personally live that “value”? Staff could smoke a pack a day and eat only cake and cola for lunch. That’s their choice. But when it comes to making business decisions, the framework is clear. Health and wellbeing isn’t a nice-to-have motto. It’s a business goal that drives action.

Why a framework beats fluffy values

The beauty of a decision framework is that it removes the guilt trip. Employees don’t have to feel like they’re failing some moral checklist every time they forget one of the values. They also don’t need to make it a competition with who is the embodiment of the vale. (Honestly why do companies love to have values as awards?) Instead, they know exactly what questions to ask when making decisions: Does this align with our direction? Does this help us achieve our goals?

Values sound nice. They make for glossy posters and good LinkedIn content. But if the aim is to actually move a business forward, clear frameworks and policies do a much better job. They turn the abstract into the practical. They give people a map instead of just a motivational quote.

If your values can fit on a mug, chances are they’re not running the company.