Many organizations like to wallpaper themselves with lists of generalized value statements, usually top down edicts and usually reflecting more espoused than practiced values. They are always what the leaders give lip service to. To know more clearly what the practiced values are, we look at 3 things: everyone's calendars, decision processes and outcomes and how peers actually treat each other across the spectrum of daily events and dynamics.
In the Agile world, we invite people around any collaboration table to identify specific and actionable principles of what matters and why that get used to shape their immediate and ongoing actions and decisions. They make a difference every time because we pay no attention to anything that lives in the land of lip service.
