How to Write Business Values That Actually Drive Decisions
Key takeaways
If you're working out how to write business values, write them as behaviour. “Trust” on a wall tells nobody anything. “We're always on time and prepared for every session” does.
Patrick Lencioni sorts values into four types: core, aspirational, permission-to-play and accidental. Only core values should drive how the business runs.
A value statement that works as a decision filter has three parts: the value, what it looks like in practice, and what you'd walk away from because of it.
Research on large US companies found proclaimed values had no clear link to performance, but employees seeing leaders as trustworthy and ethical did.
If your marketing says something your values don't back up, people notice. Urgency and scarcity are fine when they're true.
Kate asked an AI tool to review one of our sales pages against her brand voice. It came back with a pointed question: is it true there are only two spots left?
It was true. But the question says a lot. Most of us have picked up marketing habits that don't match who we are, and we don't notice until something holds them up against our values.
That's what this post is about: how to write business values that actually drive decisions, rather than four nice words on a website page. It comes from the final episode of our Road Map to Business Success series, where we closed out the Leadership quadrant of the Thriving Business Wheel.
We're Dr Kate De Jong, a PhD engineer turned business strategist, and Sam Morris, a Navy veteran who's spent 20 years in business working out what makes businesses tick and what makes them stall.
Why Don't Most Business Values Statements Work?
If nearly every business has values, why do so few of them change anything?
Most values statements don't work because they're written as nouns. A word like “integrity” describes a feeling, not a behaviour, so it can't guide what anyone does on a Tuesday afternoon.
A lot of us learned to do values the same way. You get handed a long list of words and told to pick your top three to five. Sam thinks that's the wrong way round.
“The way we were doing values was we were treating values as a noun rather than a verb.” — Sam Morris
As Kate put it, values are meant to drive behaviours. They're the compass for what you will and won't allow in the business.
Patrick Lencioni made the same point in his 2002 Harvard Business Review article, “Make Your Values Mean Something”. He opened with Enron's four values, Communication, Respect, Integrity and Excellence, and called them meaningless. His argument was that empty values statements create cynical employees and undermine managerial credibility.
There's research behind that too. Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales studied corporate culture in large US companies (Journal of Financial Economics, 2015). Proclaimed values appeared irrelevant to performance. What mattered was whether employees saw top managers as trustworthy and ethical. It's the behaviour that counts.
How Do You Write Business Values as Verbs?
What does a value look like when it describes how you operate?
You write a value as a statement of how you deliver on it. It should describe what your customers, suppliers and team can actually expect from you.
Sam's example was trust. On its own, the word doesn't mean much in the context of a business. If you make a product and say every ingredient is Australian-made, trust means it's genuinely made here, not imported and mixed together here. For a service business, it's the promise you make about how you show up.
“So the statement would be: my clients trust us to always be on time and prepared for every session. Great value statement.” — Sam Morris
Kate added value for money as an example. For a business helping start-ups, that might become: we search for the lowest-cost, highest-value option to get you to profit as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The test is whether it's already true. Sam was firm on this one.
“Values should be how you are, not how you want to be, not how you were. This is how we are, this is how we operate from day one.” — Sam Morris
What Are Lencioni's Four Types of Values?
Which of your values are actually driving the business?
Lencioni describes four types: core, aspirational, permission-to-play and accidental. Only core values should be steering how the business runs.
Core values: your non-negotiables. They're just who you are.
Aspirational values: the ones you wish were true of you, but aren't yet.
Permission-to-play values: baseline standards like honesty and respect. Most businesses have them, so they don't set you apart.
Accidental values: traits that show up organically from the founders, without anyone choosing them.
Sam's point from her reading was that most businesses mix all four into one list. So from the start, the values page is full of things that aren't really driving anything. If “honesty” is on your list, ask whether it's a core value or just the price of entry.
What Should Your Values Actually Do for Your Business?
How do you know if your values are pulling their weight?
Good values do four jobs. They speed up decisions, make hiring and firing clearer, set you apart in the market and support your pricing.
Sam came across these four in her research for the episode, and they stopped her in her tracks. She realised none of the value statements she'd written before had addressed all four.
Decision speed. If your values are clear, a lot of decisions make themselves.
Hiring and firing. You know who fits the way you operate, and who doesn't.
Differentiation. Behaviour-based values are specific to you. “Respect” isn't.
Pricing. When people buy into how you operate, not just what you deliver, price becomes less of the conversation.
How Do You Turn a Value Into a Decision Filter?
What's the difference between a value you can use and one you just display?
A value becomes a decision filter when it has three parts: the value, the behaviour that shows it in practice, and what you'd walk away from because of it.
“For value statements to function as a decision filter rather than wall art, it needs three parts.” — Sam Morris
The value. Written as something you do, not a noun.
What it means in practice. Not the feeling you want people to have, but the behaviour you use every single day.
What you'd walk away from because of it. Sam calls this the bottom-line test.
That third part is where most value statements fall over. If a value never costs you anything, it's probably not doing much. Kate summed it up in one line.
“Learning to say no is just as important as learning to say yes.” — Dr Kate De Jong
Here's how our trust example might look with all three parts. Value: we show up ready. In practice: we're on time and prepared for every session. Walk away: we won't take on more clients than we can prepare for properly.
What Happens When Your Marketing Doesn't Match Your Values?
Why can marketing feel off even when it's technically you?
People pick up the mismatch, even if they can't name it. It costs you trust, and trust is slow to rebuild.
Kate used the brand voice prompt from our AI Setup Workbook to get clear on how she speaks about her work. Her voice is that it takes time to build a sustainable business, and she'll give you the true answers, not the easy ones. When she ran her sales page and website through it, it flagged places where she'd slipped into over-enthusiastic selling without meaning to.
Most of us have been taught to use scarcity and urgency. They do work, psychologically. Kate's line is simple.
“You can use the urgency and the scarcity if it's a true thing.” — Dr Kate De Jong
Sam's view is that authenticity isn't just about showing up on camera. There's a lot of nonverbal communication going on. When what you say isn't aligned with your values, people sense a gap between the conscious and subconscious message, and the marketing stops feeling authentic.
Simon Sinek made a related point in his 2009 TEDx talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”, and his book Start With Why (2009): “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” That only works if what you say and what you do line up.
We've both felt the other side of this. In a previous company we worked for, a lot was promised to get the sale, and the delivery didn't always match. Our values are to do what we say we're going to do. Being out of step with that felt bad, and it damages a brand fast because word travels.
What If Your Values Don't Feel Commercial Enough?
Can you run a sustainable business on values that don't put profit first?
Yes. The answer isn't to cut those values out. It's to recognise them and manage how they show up, so the business stays sustainable.
Kate was honest about this one. We both lead with nurture and knowledge. Understanding things deeply, relationships, authenticity and community come first for us. That's a challenge when you're running a business that has to be commercially minded.
For Kate, it shows up as over-giving and over-delivering. She's tried for years to tame it with strong boundaries and good terms and conditions. It still creeps in, because of what matters most to her.
“My highest value is that a client gets the result that they've signed up for.” — Dr Kate De Jong
She measures success by how many clients are happy and would refer her on. Sam's response was that recognising this is the useful part, because trying to cut that part of yourself off won't work. Managing it will.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many core values should a small business have?
There's no magic number, but fewer is better. What matters is that each one is a real non-negotiable that's already true, written as a behaviour, with something you'd walk away from because of it.
What's the difference between core values and permission-to-play values?
In Lencioni's framework, permission-to-play values are the minimum standards most businesses share, like honesty and respect. Core values are specific to how you operate and help set you apart.
How do I know if my business values are working?
Check whether they're helping you make decisions faster, hire and let go of people with more clarity, stand out in your market and hold your pricing. If they're not doing any of those, they're probably just words on a page.
Is it OK to use urgency and scarcity in marketing?
It's fine when it's true. If there really are two spots left, say so. If it's a countdown timer on an evergreen product, you're trading short-term sales for long-term trust.
Your Values Check for This Week
Three things to try before Friday.
Take your current values list and mark each one as core, aspirational, permission-to-play or accidental. Be honest about which ones are actually true today.
Rewrite one core value as a behaviour your clients would recognise. Start with “Our clients can count on us to…”
Add the walk-away line. What's one enquiry, client or opportunity you'd say no to because of that value?
“When you're out of alignment, Kate, that's when you're gonna lose the very people that you want to help.” — Sam Morris
Further Reading
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