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Why Your Company's Values Are Just Words on a Wall (And How to Actually Live Them)

I was standing in the lobby of a Melbourne tech startup last month, staring at their massive "CORE VALUES" poster—you know the type, all geometric fonts and motivational buzzwords. "Innovation. Integrity. Collaboration. Excellence." The usual suspects. What really got me was watching three employees walk straight past it whilst having a heated argument about who forgot to order toilet paper for the third week running.

That's when it hit me. We've turned company values into corporate wallpaper.

After seventeen years helping businesses sort their workplace cultures, I've seen more values statements than I care to count. And here's the uncomfortable truth: 73% of them are absolute rubbish. Not because the words are wrong, but because nobody—and I mean nobody—knows what they actually mean in practice.

The Problem With Pretty Words

Let me tell you about "integrity" for a minute. Beautiful word, isn't it? Sounds important. But I've watched companies with "integrity" as their number one value routinely shaft their suppliers on payment terms whilst simultaneously lecturing staff about "doing the right thing."

The issue isn't that leaders are secretly evil. Most of them genuinely believe in their values. The problem is they've confused having values with living values. It's like the difference between owning a gym membership and actually being fit.

Take Atlassian, for example. Their values aren't just printed on fancy posters—they're baked into every hiring decision, every performance review, every product launch. When they say "Play, as a team," they don't mean mandatory team-building exercises in Sanctuary Cove. They mean creating an environment where collaboration happens naturally because the systems support it.

Why Most Values Statements Fail

Here's where companies stuff it up. They treat values like a marketing exercise instead of an operational framework.

I remember working with a Brisbane logistics company whose CEO spent $15,000 on a consultant to craft the "perfect" values statement. Six months of workshops, focus groups, the works. The result? Four beautifully crafted sentences that nobody could remember and fewer people could explain.

Meanwhile, their warehouse staff were still getting bollocked for taking bathroom breaks longer than four minutes. Innovation? Hardly. Respect? Not so much.

The disconnect happens because most leadership teams approach values backwards. They start with aspirational language and work backwards to behaviour. But values that actually work start with behaviour and work forwards to language.

What Living Your Values Actually Looks Like

Real values show up in the boring stuff. How do you handle a customer complaint? What happens when someone makes a mistake? How do you decide who gets promoted?

I once consulted for a Sydney marketing agency that claimed "transparency" as a core value. Instead of just printing it on business cards, they published their entire salary structure on the company intranet. Every role, every pay band, every bonus structure.

Radical? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely. When promotion time came around, there were no surprise decisions or whispered conversations. Everyone knew exactly what they needed to do to advance. That's transparency in action.

Here's another example that'll make some of you uncomfortable: failure celebration. Sounds like management consultant nonsense, right? But Google actually does this properly. When a project fails, they don't sweep it under the carpet or find someone to blame. They hold "failure parties" to extract every possible learning before moving on.

The Hidden Cost of Fake Values

Here's what happens when your values are just decorative: your best people leave. Not immediately—they're not dramatic about it. But slowly, quietly, they start updating their LinkedIn profiles.

Smart employees can smell bullshit from three suburbs away. When you preach "work-life balance" whilst sending emails at 11 PM, when you talk about "empowerment" whilst micromanaging every decision, when you champion "innovation" whilst punishing anyone who challenges the status quo—you're training your workforce to ignore you.

I've seen companies lose entire teams because their stated values were so far removed from reality that the cognitive dissonance became unbearable. One particular Perth mining company lost their entire IT department within six months because they kept talking about "valuing people" whilst treating their tech staff like replaceable widgets.

The financial cost? Try $150,000 per senior departure when you factor in recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity. Suddenly that investment in authentic culture doesn't seem so expensive.

The Three-Question Values Test

Want to know if your values are real? Ask yourself these three questions:

Would we fire someone for violating this value, even if they were our top performer? If the answer is no, it's not actually a value—it's a slogan.
Can a new employee understand what this value means in their day-to-day work within their first week? If they need a handbook to decode it, it's too abstract.
Do our worst customers complain about the same things our values claim we're good at? If yes, you've got a values-reality gap bigger than the Harbour Bridge.

I worked with a Adelaide consulting firm whose "customer obsession" value was constantly undermined by their billing department chasing clients for payment with all the subtlety of a debt collector. Their values poster said one thing; their customer experience said another.

Making Values Stick (Without the Corporate Cringe)

Right, so how do you actually make this work? First, stop treating values like a creative writing exercise. Start with your existing culture—what behaviours do your best people already demonstrate? Build from there.

When I help companies with this process, I use what I call the "pub test." If you can't explain your values to someone over a beer without sounding like a corporate robot, they're too complicated.

Emotional intelligence training plays a massive role here. You can't live authentic values if your leadership team can't recognise when their behaviour contradicts their stated beliefs.

Second, embed values into your systems. Not just HR systems—everything. Your project management tools, your meeting structures, your decision-making processes. If collaboration is a value, make sure your office layout actually supports it. If innovation matters, create space for experimentation in your project timelines.

Third, get comfortable with the fact that living your values will sometimes cost you money in the short term. Turning away clients who don't align with your values feels expensive until you calculate the cost of the culture damage they would have caused.

The Australian Advantage

Here's something we do better than most: cutting through the bullshit. Australians have a natural allergy to corporate speak, which is actually a massive advantage when it comes to authentic values.

Instead of "We leverage synergistic partnerships to optimise stakeholder value," try "We work well with others to get stuff done." Same meaning, actual human language.

Time management training programs often help here because authentic values require authentic time allocation. If relationship-building is important, are you actually scheduling time for it, or just hoping it happens accidentally?

When Values Actually Work

I'll never forget visiting a small Darwin construction company whose entire operation ran on one simple value: "Leave it better than you found it." No fancy posters, no corporate consultants, no mission statement workshops.

But every single person—from apprentices to project managers—could tell you exactly what that meant in their role. The apprentice swept up without being asked. The site manager fixed problems other trades had created. The owner paid suppliers early when cash flow allowed.

Their employee turnover was practically zero. Their client referral rate was above 90%. Their profit margins were healthy because they rarely had to redo work or manage conflicts.

Simple. Clear. Lived every day.

The Bottom Line

Your company values aren't a marketing campaign—they're your operational blueprint. They should guide every decision, from who you hire to how you respond to a crisis.

Stop asking "What values should we have?" and start asking "What values do we actually demonstrate?" The gap between those two answers is where your real work begins.

And for goodness sake, take down those motivational posters. If your values need explanation, they're not clear enough. If they need decoration, they're not strong enough.

The best company values I've ever seen were scribbled on a whiteboard in a Surfers Paradise startup's kitchen: "Don't be a dick."

Crude? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely. Everyone knew exactly what it meant, and more importantly, everyone lived it.

That's the difference between values that inspire LinkedIn posts and values that actually work.