Real values are not words on a wall. They are convictions, beliefs that drive how your organization thinks, decides, and acts. They answer the question: what do we believe is right, good, and important, and what does that look like in action? When values are written as actionable phrases rather than single words, they become filters for hiring, standards for accountability, and guides for independent decision-making. The test of an authentic value is whether you can point to real behavior it produces, celebrate it when it happens, coach on it when it's missing, and use it to call out misalignment when it shows up. If you can't do those four things, it's not a value yet. It's an aspiration.
Most company values don't do anything. They're generic words that sound good... integrity, teamwork, accountability... but they don't guide decisions or shape hiring. They live on a poster and collect dust. When someone does something wrong, there's no way to use the value to address it specifically. When someone does something right, there's no clear way to recognize it.
This episode, part two of the seven-part alignment series, is about what real values actually are and how to build them. I introduce the distinction between authentic values (what you actually believe and live out) and aspirational values (what you wish were true). I walk through the actionable phrase format that makes values usable, introduces the tale of two home builders, Precision Builders and Vision Builders, to show how the same industry can attract completely different people through the clarity of what each company believes.
- Real values are beliefs that drive behavior, not words that sound good. A single word like 'integrity' can't guide anyone's decision in a specific situation. A phrase like 'we do what's right even when it costs us something' can.
- Values serve three functions: they filter decisions, create an objective standard for accountability, and guide independent thinking when you're not in the room.
- Authentic values reflect what you actually do, not what you aspire to do. If your team doesn't invest in training, you don't value learning, no matter what the poster says.
- No amount of coaching will get someone to believe something they don't. You can coach behavior. You can't coach conviction. That's why hiring for values is more powerful than training for them.
- The tale of two builders shows how two companies in the same industry can attract completely different people just by being clear about what they believe. One wants safety and consistency. The other wants innovation and experimentation. Both are right for someone. Neither is right for everyone.
- Values have to be ingrained into hiring, onboarding, weekly meetings, performance reviews, and coaching conversations. If you're only bringing them up once a year, they're not doing anything.
- When you define your values clearly enough to use them, misalignment becomes visible and addressable. When you don't, misalignment is just called 'attitude' or 'culture fit' and nothing gets resolved.
How do I write company values that actually mean something?
Stop using single words. Single words can't guide behavior in a specific situation. 'Integrity' doesn't tell anyone what to do when a customer is upset and the easy move is to deflect. A phrase does.
The format that works is a short action phrase followed by a brief definition. 'Do what's right: we tell the truth even when it costs us something.' That phrase can walk into a real conversation. A supervisor can sit down with someone who deflected blame onto a coworker and say, we have a value here: do what's right, even when it costs you something. That was a situation where you had a chance to live that out. What happened? The value creates the conversation.
Start by asking what you actually believe about work and people and how things should be done. What are you proud of when you see it on your team? What frustrates you when you see it? The gap between those two things is where your real values live. Then write them in phrases that could guide a decision when you're not in the room.
Values are convictions, principles that determine how you make decisions. And when your values are clear, decisions actually get simpler. When they're not clear or non-existent, you have the side effects of that, and it shows up everywhere in your business.
Amy Dardis, Episode 13What's the difference between authentic values and aspirational values?
Authentic values reflect what your organization actually does and believes. Aspirational values reflect what you wish were true or what sounds impressive.
The test is behavioral. If your business values continuous learning, you should be able to point to: people who invest in their own development without being told, regular conversations about what the team is reading or learning, real resources allocated toward training, certifications your team pursues, discussions after things go wrong about what could be learned. That's a business that values learning.
If training is seen as a cost or a distraction, if books and podcasts are treated as optional extras, if the only learning that happens is mandatory compliance training, then the business doesn't value learning, regardless of what the poster says.
When your stated values don't match your real behavior, your team notices the gap immediately. And the gap tells them that values are decorative, not functional. Once that's the conclusion, nothing you say about culture or standards will land with any weight.
Your values are going to be what you celebrate, what you tolerate, what you are going to correct on, because it matters so much to you. Because it's a belief, it's a conviction, it's something you're not going to let slide.
Amy Dardis, Episode 13How do I use values to hold people accountable without it feeling subjective?
That's exactly what well-defined values are for. When a value is written as a behavioral phrase with a clear definition, accountability stops being about personality or management style. It becomes about a specific observable behavior measured against a specific documented standard.
My example: an employee fails to follow through with a customer, gets defensive when it's raised, and starts making excuses. Without a value in place, a manager might say 'that attitude isn't acceptable' and the employee hears a personal attack. With a value in place, the conversation sounds different: 'In this company, we do what it takes, which means we take ownership and find solutions, not excuses. In this situation, you didn't follow through, and when it came up, you deflected. That's not aligned with how we operate. Let's talk about it.'
The employee has heard about this value before. It was in the job posting. It came up in onboarding. It's been mentioned in meetings and shout-outs. So the conversation doesn't feel like a surprise attack. It feels like a standard being applied consistently, which is what accountability is supposed to feel like.
When you can use a value to recognize someone publicly, coach someone privately, and address misalignment directly with an objective standard, the value is doing its job. If you can't do all three, the value isn't specific enough yet.
How do my company values affect who applies for my jobs?
Significantly, if you put them in the job posting with enough specificity.
I use the tale of two home builders as an example. Precision Builders values unimpeachable character, safety first, accountability, precision and consistency, and respect for the craft. Vision Builders values challenging the ordinary, staying curious, adapting and evolving, collaborating boldly, and owning the impact. Both are home builders. Both are hiring a project superintendent. But the person who reads Precision Builders' values and feels excited is a completely different person from the one who reads Vision Builders' values and feels excited.
The person who's spent years watching careless jobsite decisions result in injuries is going to be drawn to Precision Builders' safety-first commitment. The person who's restless in companies that always do things the same way is going to light up at Vision Builders' challenge the ordinary value.
This is self-selection in action. When your values are specific and behavioral, the right people recognize themselves in them and apply. The wrong people recognize that it's not their environment and self-select out. That's the most efficient possible recruiting process: your posting does the filtering before you ever get on a call.
No amount of talking or coaching or performance improvement plans is ever going to convince someone to believe or value something that they don't. The more transparent, the more bold we can be with what we believe, the more we're going to attract people who inherently have these values.
Amy Dardis, Episode 13Resources mentioned
- Free Hiring Resources — Downloads to help you define your values and build them into your hiring process
- Ep 12 — Creating Alignment With Your People — Previous episode in this seven-part series: the three dimensions of alignment
- Ep 14 — Work Style Alignment — Next episode in this seven-part series
- Ep 3 — Why Clarity Is the Foundation of a Clear Authentic Brand
Full transcript
Welcome back to the Building a Clear Authentic Brand podcast. I'm your host, Amy Dardis. We're in part two of our seven-part mini-series on creating alignment with your people. And today we're talking about aligning values. Last episode we introduced the series and the big picture of creating alignment with your people. There are three dimensions to alignment that we're exploring, calling them the three Cs: culture, capacity, and contribution. We're starting with the first C, which is culture. Within culture, there are four elements: values, work style, traits, and non-negotiables. Today we're focusing on values.
When I first started working with businesses, I thought values were just words on a wall. Most businesses didn't have them. And if they did, they were often cliche or generic or empty. Because in most cases, they are just words on a wall. They are just things that sound good but don't really reflect how the business operates or guide how they make decisions or the people they hire. The words used are often generic and overused. It seems like everybody has the same values, things like integrity or teamwork or accountability. Just one word that holds good meaning and good intent, but it's hard to bring one word to life within a business. They sound good, but they're not being lived out.
What I learned along the way was that real values are not words. They're beliefs. Values are convictions, principles that determine how you make decisions. And when your values are clear, decisions actually get simpler. And when they're not clear or non-existent, you have the side effects of that, and it shows up everywhere in your business. You have confusion, frustration, inconsistency, drift, a business that doesn't know what it believes in, people who don't know what they believe in because there are no defined beliefs, no guiding principles to say: this is how we act, this is how we make decisions, this is our filter for how we will operate and move forward.
Values really are beliefs that drive behavior. And they answer the question: what do we believe is right, good, and important? And how should that belief show up in action? That's the key: what does it look like lived out? Values are not marketing language or ideals. They're the convictions that shape how your organization thinks, decides, and acts. Values alignment means that a person's beliefs and principles are consistent with the organization's values. What the organization believes, the principles that guide them, the people who work for them share those things too.
When we're looking at a person who's going to join our organization, or looking at an existing team member, we have to be able to answer the question: does this person believe what we believe about how we do business, about how we treat people, about how we make decisions? The unfortunate reality is that so many businesses don't take the time to actually define what they believe. So there is no way to answer that question. That's where we get frustration, that's where we get misalignment, that's where we get chaos and people going in different directions. Because if we didn't define what we believe first, you can't answer whether someone shares those beliefs or not.
Values guide how we behave, how we make decisions, and how we treat people. How we treat each other, our coworkers, our customers. They give you clarity on how to act within a certain situation, how to make a decision that's going to align with your brand, your purpose, your mission, your calling. They protect your brand and help you continue to move forward with clarity, direction, and momentum.
Shared values do three things. They drive behavior. They help us filter decisions: who do we hire, what processes do we implement, what opportunities do we say yes to, what direction do we move in, what messages do we put out? They really become our filter. Values also create a standard. Something we can tangibly hold onto. We can define and say, this is how we act, these are the behaviors we expect, and here is how we can hold ourselves accountable to them. We can clearly identify when a person acted correctly in a situation, or when a person went against that and acted differently. We can call it out, coach on it, correct it, or recognize that there is misalignment to address. It takes subjectiveness out of it. Behavior and culture become objective because we are defining the standard.
So where do we start? We have to first define our values. We ask this question: what do we believe about work and people and success? What do we believe matters in the long run? What do we believe is the right thing to do? What is our own moral compass that we want to live by and be guided by? Then we look at behavior: what actions on your team or in yourself are you proud of? What do you want more of? What actions frustrate you or create frustration within your team? That gap is where your values live. Then we have to take these beliefs and behaviors and make them actionable. We have to write them and position them in a way where you could use them to guide behavior and thought process within a specific situation.
Instead of using something like a single word, like integrity or honesty, we would say a phrase that guides a decision or a behavior. Do what's right: we tell the truth even when it costs us something. That gives me direction. If I'm in a situation and I see an employee doing something they shouldn't, maybe they're clocking out early and lying on their time card, I know how the leadership team would want me to act. Our values say we tell the truth even when it costs us something.
Another value: do what it takes, which means we take ownership and we find solutions, not excuses. Let's say we have a team meeting and we have a problem we're trying to solve for a customer. You might have an employee who says there's nothing that can be done here, and you find out through further conversation that they failed to follow up or follow through on a commitment. The customer is upset and threatening to remove their business. And here is this employee who is not taking ownership, not finding solutions, making excuses. You can look at this person with objectivity, with clarity and with a standard, and say: in this company, we do what it takes. That means we take ownership and find solutions, not excuses. The issue is you failed to follow through with this customer. You are not taking ownership. Instead of finding solutions or telling the truth, even when it costs you your pride, you are making an excuse. That is not how we behave.
They know this value isn't new. They were hired through it, trained on it. You've talked about it. They should be able to recognize that they are not living by this value. This can either be a one-time situation, or it can be something that repeats itself and reveals a pattern of misalignment. That's the beauty of defining it and bringing it to life: people know what's expected, and they can exercise independent judgment when you're not there. They're with a customer, can't reach you, and in their head they can ask: what do we believe as a company? Well, we believe in doing what's right, doing what it takes. I'll make this decision based on those values. And when my boss asks me later, I'll point to those values. They have peace with that, conviction with that, direction without you telling them specifically what to do.
Based on that, your values should be authentic, not aspirational. Values need to actually reflect who you really are. If you are a business that values learning and growing and curiosity, that looks like certain things: a business that invests in training, people who are hungry to learn and read books and listen to podcasts and watch videos, excited to attend training, lots of certifications, discussions about what we learned in this situation. It's real. It shows up. It doesn't look like a business that thinks training is a waste of time or that doesn't value being challenged by different perspectives.
Your values are going to be what you celebrate, what you tolerate, and what you correct on, because it matters so much to you. It's a belief, a conviction, something you're not going to let slide. So I want to share some examples of how values can be so drastically different. It's impossible to be a business that values everything. We prioritize what we value.
Staying curious: asking, exploring, never stopping learning. We seek people who love to learn and find it exciting. Extreme ownership: people own their work, own their results, own their impact. No excuse making. When we win, when we lose, we're in it together. What could I have done differently? How can I improve? Challenge the ordinary: pushing boundaries, rethinking possibilities, creating what others won't. Apple is known for this. Refusing mediocrity: not settling for average, striving for impact. Building belonging: creating spaces where people feel seen, heard, and valued. Master the details: excellence in the small things, discipline and consistency over motivation.
There's a wide range of things you could value, and in any sense they're all good things, but they won't fit everybody. It's finding your unique set of values, being able to clarify it, communicate it, and then hold people accountable to it. That's easier when you're attracting and aligning people who also share those values. We all value different things. Some of us value freedom and creativity, some value discipline and routine. The important thing is to find people to join your organization who share those values, because they will thrive, they will help your brand come to life, they will bring authenticity and consistency. The alternative is having people in your organization who don't share those values. That creates friction, tension, and a lot of intersections and far fewer parallels.
We can never share values unless we know first what those values are. When they're ingrained into our hiring process and our recruiting process, we're having conversations around these things and saying, as a business, we value these things, this is how we operate, this is what guides our decisions and behavior. People have the opportunity to hear that and think, wow, where have you been? Or they're thinking, that's not for me. I actually worked with a client who values excellence in the details, consistency, and the world of black and white. They need people who love routine, who love the black and white, who are guided by those principles. I love them as a client. But I could never work for them. I could never thrive in their organization because I don't share those values. I don't value the black and white or the details. I value freedom and flexibility and autonomy and creativity. It's not a good fit. We could be great people, enjoy being around each other, have a great relationship, but this clarity about what they value versus what I value helps us make good, healthy decisions about who would naturally thrive and who we'd stay better friends with rather than become coworkers.
Now I want to introduce you to two different companies. It's a tale of two brands. These are fictional businesses for the sake of this example, but I have plenty of real life examples of how this comes to life. So we have two home builder companies. Company A is Precision Builders, and they focus on doing what's right, being safe, and being consistent. Their core values: unimpeachable character, we do what's right even when it's inconvenient, unseen, or uncelebrated. Safety first: no project, profit, or deadline is ever worth someone's well-being. Accountability: we take responsibility for our work, our words, and our results. Precision and consistency: we follow proven systems that protect quality and trust. We respect the craft: we take pride in doing things the right way the first time.
Company B is Vision Builders. They care about innovation, adaptability, and creating better ways to build. Their values: challenge the ordinary, we question assumptions and look for smarter, more creative ways to build. Stay curious, we learn, experiment, and never stop improving. Adapt and evolve, we move quickly and adjust to what the moment demands. Collaborate boldly, great ideas win no matter where they come from. Own the impact, we take responsibility for the results our innovation creates.
Both companies have an opening for a project superintendent. But these two job listings are going to attract completely different people. If you love to challenge the ordinary, want to be creative, don't like doing things the same way, and feel excited by experimentation, Vision Builders is going to call to you. But if you look at Precision Builders' values about following proven systems and doing things the right way the first time, you might recognize the value in it but not feel the pull.
On the other hand, maybe you've been on too many jobsites where safety was more of a suggestion than a rule. Maybe you saw somebody break their back because of carelessness, because the company was trying to meet a deadline. You care about going home to your family every day. You love to build, love to follow systems, like predictability and consistency. Precision Builders is going to do so much for you, because finally here's a company that values what you value. That's how what we believe not only sets the direction and tone for our brand, but also attracts the right people to join our team.
A quick recap: values are the filter for our decisions, our hiring, our conversations. They define what we believe. They're convictions. They give meaning to the work we do. They're what brings words on a wall to life. They provide consistency so that when we say we believe something, we're consistently living it out and being authentic to ourselves and our brand, because we're attracting people who share these values and alignment is being created because we're all growing in the same direction. No amount of talking or coaching or performance improvement plans is ever going to convince someone to believe or value something that they don't. The more transparent, the more upfront, the more bold we can be with what we believe and ingraining it into our culture, the more we're going to attract people who inherently share those values. And we're going to spend less time dealing with the friction that comes with people who don't.
In the next episode, we're going to continue on this series and talk about work style alignment: understanding how we work and finding the people who are the best suited to thrive within that environment. As always, you can learn more at clearauthenticbrands.com. That's all for this episode. I will see you in the next one.