Corporate Virtues

In my work with CEOs, I see a lot of documents containing the company’s “core values.”
 
You know what they usually look like: Integrity. Honesty. Commitment. And so on. It may not surprise you that most employees can’t name even one of their own company’s values.
 
The cynic asks, “Does it really matter?” Is the process of setting company values anything more than corporate virtue signaling?
 
I strongly disagree that values aren’t important, but there is a seed of truth in that critique. When some companies go through the core values exercise, they are indeed putting forth “virtues” rather than “values.”
 
Integrity is a great example. This was famously one of Enron’s core values at the time of its demise. Integrity is a virtue—something we expect as baseline in any company we do business with. Telling your employees “We don’t rip people off around here” doesn’t give them anything to work with and establishes a shockingly low bar.
 
Teamwork. Trust. Honesty. These are all virtues, which makes…