Values

The explicit or implicit principles that guide an organization's decisions when trade-offs arise. Values aren't what's written on the wall—they're revealed by what a company does when values conflict with profit, speed, or convenience. Real values are expensive: they require sacrifice in specific situations. If a 'value' never costs you anything, it's a preference, not a value. The gap between stated and enacted values is one of the most reliable indicators of organizational health.

When to use it

When facing decisions where competing priorities conflict; when building or rebuilding organizational culture; when stated values and actual behavior diverge (culture rot); when hiring for cultural fit—define fit by values, not personality.

How it can help

Audit your organization's actual values by examining decisions where trade-offs were made. Did you ship a product you knew wasn't ready? (Speed over quality.) Did you keep a toxic high-performer? (Revenue over culture.) The reveals are in the hard cases, not the easy ones. Effective values work as decision filters: when two valid options conflict, values determine which one wins. If your values don't resolve hard trade-offs, they're decorative.