[neolefty]

I've encountered people who sincerely dislike talk of "values", and I think it's because they have seen them used as a flog rather than an inspiration. My guess is that there was a leader in their past who set values but didn't actually follow them. "We dig ditches" means "everybody but me digs ditches". It's hard to be both technically and morally capable, but I think that's what leadership requires.

So an approach might be to set only the values you can actually follow through on, and be clear when a value is aspirational. If you really do dig ditches (perhaps metaphorically, maybe by fixing deployment script bugs or something), then you can use it as a value.

To be clear: I'm definitely in favor of team values. Is there a way to make them achievable, but also grow them over time as you get better at them?

[seadan83]

I'm sincerely skeptical of values. "Customers first", except when we are making money off of them. It's in part observing the actual action, and not just the talk. It's funny how guidelines becomes the rubric for a performance review, yet you are promoted or fired for completely different reasons. Too often the values are whatever the hell the management wants to interpret them to be, whenever.

It's perhaps a difference of "We dig ditches", vs "the manager dug a ditch last week, the prior week, and this week we are digging these ditches together." All that can change, but the tract record and the habits speak more than just a motto on the wall.