Today I’m taking you behind the scenes of a values project I’m running for a client who has operated for twenty years with no formal values. They now want clarity for the next twenty years, and my job is to help them create values that aren’t generic, fluffy or destined to die on a wall.

I walk through how I’ve set this up: collecting real employee stories, stripping out my own bias, keeping the integrity of their language, then preparing a core group of twenty to come together tomorrow for the heavy lifting. I share exactly what I’ve told them to expect, why they’ll probably get annoyed with me, and the traps teams fall into when they chase nice-sounding words rather than decision-making tools.

You’ll hear the three things I’m setting them up with:

1. Their actual role in the room
2. What good values really feel like when they’re not corporate wallpaper.
3. The red flags that show you’re playing small, copying the ASX top 500 and kidding yourself that “integrity” is a differentiator.

I also talk about why stories are non-negotiable, why values are ultimately about trade-offs, and why the hardest part isn’t writing them but operationalising them into the day-to-day reality of the business.

If you’ve ever tried to define values or need to refresh the ones you’ve got, this episode will give you a sharper lens and a few hard truths.

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