How to Live Your Company Values Daily

Walk into almost any office and you’ll see words like Integrity, Innovation, or Respect printed on the wall. They look good. They sound good. But they rarely guide real decisions.

The truth is, most company values are aspirational, not operational. They describe what leaders hope people believe, not what employees actually do.

If you ask ten people what “Integrity” means, you’ll get ten different answers. 

For one person, it means honesty. For another, accountability. For someone else, keeping promises. So everyone uses the same words, but behaves differently. That’s how values lose credibility.

When values become slogans instead of systems, they stop shaping culture.

Why Values Written as Nouns Don’t Work

Values like Respect or Collaboration sound noble, but they fail a simple test: can you see them?

You can’t see Integrity, but you can see someone admit a mistake in a meeting.

You can’t see Innovation, but you can see someone suggest a new process that saves time.

You can’t see Respect, but you can see someone listen without interrupting.

That’s the gap.

When values are nouns, they’re open to interpretation. When they’re verbs, they become visible and teachable. Your company doesn’t need prettier words, it needs behaviors people can measure, recognize, and model.

Why You Should Care

Unclear values don’t just create confusion, they create real problems.

• In hiring: managers hire for personality fit, not value alignment.

• In reviews: performance feels subjective because no one knows what “right” looks like.

• In conflict: teams disagree on what “doing the right thing” means.

• In growth: new hires dilute culture because the values aren’t teachable.

  
  

A company can’t scale trust or accountability on vague principles. Clear values become decision filters for who gets hired, promoted, and rewarded.

How to Turn Values Into Everyday Behavior

The best organizations translate values from abstract nouns into visible actions. Here’s how to make it real:

1. Start with reality, not ideals. 

Look at what already defines your best people. Ask your team:

• Who do we rely on when things get hard?

• What makes that person effective?

Patterns will emerge. These represent your genuine values, the ones that influence performance daily.

2. Translate each value into 3–5 observable behaviors. 

If it can’t pass the “Can I see it?” test, rewrite it.

For example:

Old Value	Updated Behavior-Based Value	Observable Actions
Integrity	We do what we say, even when no one’s watching.	We meet deadlines. We admit mistakes. We document decisions.
Collaboration	We share progress early and often.	We seek feedback before finalizing work. We celebrate team wins publicly.
Innovation	We improve one process every quarter.	We test, measure, and iterate without blame.

Behavior-based values give managers something to coach, not just quote.

3. Build them into every system. 

Values don't belong in a slide deck, they belong in hiring, recognition, and reviews.

• Add behavioral questions to interviews.

• Reward employees for modeling values, not just hitting targets.

• Tie promotions to demonstrated behaviors.

When values affect advancement, they stop being optional.

4. Audit and adjust regularly. 

Culture evolves. Check in quarterly:

• Are these behaviors still visible?

• Are leaders modeling them?

• Do new hires understand them within 30 days?

Accountability keeps values alive.

Turning Words Into Culture

Culture isn’t what’s written, it’s what’s witnessed.

When values are clear, employees know how to succeed, and managers know what to coach. Teams make decisions faster and trust each other more.

Because the best leaders don’t preach values, they practice them. They show, not tell, what the company stands for in every meeting, review, and conversation.

Your company doesn’t need a new set of values. It needs a new way to live the ones it already has.

So choose one value today and rewrite it as a behavior. Then ask your team, “Can we see this in action?”

That’s how culture becomes real.

Because clarity isn’t just kind, it’s scalable.

Take one value from your company’s list and turn it into an observable behavior. Try it in a meeting, a review, or a daily interaction and notice how it changes the way your team works and trusts each other.

Then reflect: are we really living our values, or just talking about them?

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