Values in corporates
After working on the values exercise with three different coachees (clients for others) this week, I need to get this off my chest because as I’m doing a HR degree. I cannot help but see things in a different light. This is a thought process, this is not my opinion forever, but a thought process I am trying to make sense of.
I have a nagging concern about how companies have corrupted the very concept of values, a framework that should belong to humans, not corporate entities.
Values are the principles that guide how we act in the world and the strategies we use to meet our fundamental needs like belonging, security, and purpose. They're deeply personal compass angles that become clear from our lived experiences and shape our choices.
Yet when I read corporate "values" statements, I'm struck by how misused the exercise has become. Companies expect us to accept their self-proclaimed values at face value, despite the obvious contradiction: most corporations exist primarily to generate profit and protect their brand.
This isn't inherently wrong, but let's be honest about it.
Using language designed for individual human experience to represent a profit-driven entity is rarely truthful. When a corporation claims to "value" something, they're appropriating intimate human terminology to dress up business strategy.
Values aren't aspirational wishes or marketing copy, they're proven through consistent action, not proclaimed through carefully crafted statements.
If your company claims to value transparency but obscures pricing, manipulates contracts, adds fake positive glassdoor employee reviews, or hides decision-making processes, you don't actually hold that value. You simply find transparency convenient in select, self-serving situations.
This is why I find corporate behaviour patterns far more revealing and honest than values statements. Behaviours tell the real story: how a company treats employees during layoffs, responds to customer complaints, or handles ethical dilemmas when profits are at stake.
I genuinely encourage everyone to resist letting corporations define what we believe values to be. Values are part of our human heritage, the internal moral architecture that guides authentic living. When we allow companies to use this language, we dilute something essential about what it means to be human.
Let's reclaim values as a fundamentally personal concept and judge organisations by their actions, not their aspirations.
