Most organizations define their values during pivotal moments — at their founding, during a rebrand or when leadership changes. But too often, those values are relegated to the About Us page of a website, sitting alongside the mission and vision statements, destined to be forgotten.

Even when employees know the stated values, they often feel disconnected from them. That’s because many company values are dopaminergic ideals — concepts that trigger excitement or aspiration but lack grounding in practical application. They aren’t used to align behavior, build trust or guide decision-making — and that’s a missed opportunity.

Values are one of the most powerful tools a company has. They create alignment, empower autonomy and enable agility. Yet, for many organizations, values remain neglected and underutilized.

What does “value” really mean?

The word value comes from the Latin root meaning “to be worth” or “to be strong.” It shares its origin with valiant. Living by your values is an act of courage. It means standing firm in what matters most. For a company, this is the foundation of a loyal, connected, and vibrant culture.

Every team is made up of individuals with unique backgrounds and personal values. Shared values bring people together. They create alignment around a common purpose, removing ambiguity and reducing the need to second-guess intentions. With shared values, trust grows and teams can focus on meaningful actions, even while navigating uncertainty.

Related: 3 Steps to Establish Authentic Core Values

The competitive edge of values

Strong values don’t just shape internal culture — they also set you apart in the marketplace. As Simon Sinek famously said, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” Your values articulate your why. They communicate what your company stands for and how you operate in the world.

This principle is the foundation of my book, Start With Values. Refreshing your company’s values isn’t about branding or appearances. It’s a deep, introspective process. It asks two essential questions: Who are we now? and How do we want to operate in a constantly evolving world?

Co-creation brings values to life

The best values are created collaboratively. Start by asking your team, “What’s most important to you?” Collect their answers. Look for patterns. You might be surprised by what you discover.

In my work with companies, this exercise often uncovers unexpected insights. At one organization, employees ranked wisdom, integrity, and achievement as their top values. Leadership hadn’t anticipated these — they assumed the team’s priorities revolved around service and stability.

We refined these values into actionable principles:

• Integrity became Do the right thing.
• Wisdom became Evolve — a call to learn and grow.
• Achievement became Be bold — a rallying cry for confidence and innovation.

This process matters. When employees feel heard and see their input reflected, they’re far more likely to embrace and live those values. Ownership transforms abstract ideas into shared commitments.

The rule of three

Three is the magic number for company values. Why? Because it’s easy to remember. Think of the three little pigs, the three wise men or the “ABC” simplicity we learned as children. Limiting yourself to three values ensures clarity and focus.

These values should become lenses for decision-making. For instance, a customer service agent handling a complaint might ask:

• Can I be bold in solving this issue?
• Can we evolve our process to prevent similar problems?
• Am I doing the right thing for the customer and the company?

These questions provide clarity and empower employees to act with confidence. Decisions become faster and alignment improves.

Related: Unlock the Secret to Crafting Compelling Core Values With This Step-by-Step Guide

Turning values into action

Values shouldn’t be static words on a page. They should guide how your company operates — how you act, react and make decisions.

Elite teams, like Navy SEALs or championship sports teams, demonstrate this in practice. For them, values aren’t theoretical concepts. They’re embedded in every action and decision. Over time, these values become second nature — not because they’re forgotten, but because they’ve been fully integrated.

In the corporate world, companies with strong values consistently outperform their peers. They foster trust, encourage innovation and navigate challenges with resilience. Teams that know what they stand for move faster, collaborate better and deliver more consistently. Research by Gallup suggests that connection to company culture creates a fourfold increase in engagement and a 62% reduction in burnout.

Why now?

If your values feel outdated or disconnected, now is the time to revisit them. Values should reflect who you are today, not who you were five or 10 years ago. They must be relevant, actionable and aligned with your organization’s goals.

Start by listening to your team. Identify shared personal values. Then, refine those insights into three clear, actionable organizational values. These values should inspire, guide and energize — not overwhelm. When done well, values are more than statements. They’re your identity. They build trust. They drive performance. They create cultures that people want to be part of.

It’s time to rethink your company’s values. The secret to a thriving, connected team might be closer than you realize.

BlackRock’s timing couldn’t be better: It literally exited a weird, self-serving and futile environmental virtue signaling coalition of companies, sponsored by the unctuous bureaucrats at the United Nations no less, as Los Angeles was being burned to the ground because of woke climate policies. 

Corporate leaders are getting the memo, while progressives are left to sift through the ashes. 

Last week, The Post was first to report that BlackRock was leaving the “Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative,” a UN-backed group of institutional investors who say they want to save the world from climate Armageddon. It sounded like a good idea when BlackRock joined a few years back. 

The corporate ecosystem went hard left out of alleged necessity — the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer was evidence that the country was systemically racist, hence the need for racial quotas in hiring through the practice of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies. 

The world was changing fast and the working and middle class needed to be indoctrinated on left-wing dogma just like they do to people in Europe, or our neighbors up north.

Team-building seminars were replaced by critical race theory seminars preaching the evils of the freest place on earth.

TV commercials needed to feature trans women sipping a Bud Light because American workers needed to be reminded of intersectionality 24/7. 

On top of this, the environment needed to be protected at all costs. Al Gore’s dystopian prediction of massive climate change that would destroy the US economy was heading for us like a runaway freight train. 

Scary stuff, which is why asset managers like BlackRock — the world’s biggest — but also JPMorgan and State Street joined the UN-tied group, and others like it, and began investing in a way that made sure the environment would be protected from dreaded climate change. 

Of course, they left out several key facts in their proselytizing. First, none of these businesses are charitable institutions; they’re publicly traded companies.

If they’re going to make the world a better place, they better make money doing it.

The money spigot was known as ESG, or Environmental Social Governance, investing, which uses the power of the investment dollar to tell management what to do.

The misguided strategy told oil companies they needed to drill for less oil and build more windmills to get that old carbon footprint down. 

Lefty pols wanted ESG 

ESG funds carried huge fees, much higher than any found elsewhere on Wall Street. And they were seen as a gold mine by woke investors.

Big state pension plans in blue states run by some of the most left-wing pols in the country were now demanding it. 

You could win their business if you showed sufficient fealty. BlackRock and others spread ESG dictates not just on investors who wanted it, but stealthily throughout their investment process.

Big bucks to be made in going woke. Plus you had the UN to provide you with political cover. 

As I point out in my book, “Go Woke Go Broke; The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America,” there are real questions — serious scientific questions — whether any of these efforts to curtail carbon emissions were working and whether they were doing more harm than good. 

Telling oil companies to scale back on production has consequences, particularly when supply chains are stressed post-COVID. 

Larry Fink of BlackRock and ­Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan are billionaires. They aren’t really affected by $5 gas that began to kick in around mid-2021 when ESG was the way of the world. 

But working-class people felt the pain at the pump, and they had enough. The blue states lost population and their pension clout waned as people fled. Red state pension officials demanded an end to the ESG nonsense.

Republicans took Congress and later, ­under the decidedly non-woke Don­ald Trump, the presidency. Jim Jordan, the powerful Ohio GOP congressman, looked into the UN-endorsed coalition, and investigated whether it violated antitrust laws involving collusion.

It was one reason cited for BlackRock’s ­departure. (A spokeswoman for the coalition tells The Post the group “is not in violation of antitrust laws or any laws for that matter.”) 

In California, that woke mentality has become painfully clear. LA doesn’t have enough water to put out the flames. Gavin Newsom instituted strict environmental laws to save a small fish species.

For all his left-wing posturing as governor, Newsom seems oblivious that climate change isn’t reversing because protecting small fish won’t stop a wildfire in a state that deals with them every year. 

Meanwhile, the meritocracy of the LA Fire Department is in shambles. The city’s mayor, Karen Bass, and its fire chief, Kristin Crowley, embarked on a DEI hiring spree — men need not apply for a particularly strength-intensive job.

These two dunderheads aired a recruitment video that suggested it isn’t a female firefighter’s fault that she can’t physically remove someone from a burning building — it’s the victim’s fault for being there. 

I can’t tell you when lefty pols will end their woke insanity, but CEOs are. Fink is moving away from ESG; so is Dimon.

Others like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg are ending corporate DEI policies because not only does it deprive companies of merit, but also because people hate it — and it’s a violation of civil rights laws. 

If you go woke, you might not only go broke — you could also destroy an entire city.