How to Actually Operationalize Values

Almost every company has a set of values. Few can describe how those values show up in daily work.

There’s a difference between having values and using them.

Culture is built by the behaviors you enforce.

The Values Gap

Values often live in onboarding decks or on the company website. They’re introduced, but rarely revisited. Leaders reference them during annual planning or when responding to conflict, but not as a living part of the business.

When values are symbolic instead of strategic, trust erodes. Culture starts to drift. And decisions get made without a shared compass.

What Operationalized Values Look Like

Operationalized values don’t live in the abstract. They live in:

• Who gets promoted and why

• How meetings are run

• What behaviors are recognized, tolerated, or corrected

• How leaders navigate tension and trade-offs

  
  

They serve as decision tools, not just slogans.

Make Values Usable

To embed values in the organization, ask:

• Do we define what each value looks like in practice?

• Are we training managers to model and reinforce them?

• Do our performance and recognition systems align with these behaviors?

• Are our leadership teams willing to call out misalignment — even when it’s uncomfortable?

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s consistency. When people see leaders apply values in real moments, culture becomes credible.