Most Family Business Values Statements Don't Actually Guide Decisions. Here’s How to Turn Yours Into an Operating System.
- 12 hours ago
- 5 min read
A values statement on the wall doesn't help anyone make a hard call. That's the
problem Bill Stranberg and Justin Albertson of JG Executive Advisory identified in a conversation about family business operating systems: most values statements are written to look good, not to be used, and the businesses that lean hardest on words like "integrity" and "do the right thing" are sometimes the ones that take values least seriously in practice.
Why generic value statements fail in practice in family business
There’s nothing inherently wrong with owning values like "integrity" or "do the right thing.” Bill Stranberg says that they're just untestable. Every business would claim them. When a value could apply to any decision in any direction, it doesn't actually help anyone choose between two reasonable options under pressure. These statements tend to read more like marketing than a real operating tool. This points to a pattern: organizations that lean on the vaguest values language are frequently the ones that treat values as decoration. They don’t actually shape decisions.
Stranberg’s litmus test for a real values statement: can you point to a specific, difficult decision the business made because of that value, because the value outweighed the cost? If not, the value isn't actually operating.
Family business values example that passes the test
Both advisors pointed to the Cathy family's decision to keep Chick-fil-A closed on Sundays as an example that passes. It's a decision made against significant revenue in favor of a value the ownership group weighted more heavily than that revenue. The test isn't whether the decision is popular or replicable. It shows a value actually overriding a competing interest.
A more personal example of the same principle happened right at Stranberg. The firm's "people first" value, which prioritizes genuine human connection, led to a decision to sunset a meeting note-taking tool the company had been using. The vendor is rolling out a feature that would use recordings of Bill's voice to generate an AI version of him that could sit in on meetings and report back, freeing up real time. It's a legitimate efficiency gain. Stranberg turned it down anyway because it would replace an artificial version of a human relationship with a real one. This was a direct conflict with a stated value, resolved in the value's favor even at a cost.
Why values need to be ranked, not just listed
Albertson's core addition to this idea is one he traces to Gary Ridge, the longtime CEO of WD-40: values only function as a decision-making tool when they're prioritized against each other, not just listed side by side.
Most values statements list several values without order, which creates a problem the moment two of them point in opposite directions. Albertson's example: a business lists "customer first" and "integrity" as equal values, then a customer asks an employee to do something that isn't legal or right. Listed as equals, the two values offer no answer, and the employee is left to freelance a judgment call. Different employees will land in different places. Rank integrity above customer service; for instance, the same situation resolves cleanly. The employee has a clear answer, not a guess.
Albertson has seen the reverse failure too: organizations that push customer service or profit hard enough, without a values hierarchy to check it against, end up producing exactly the behavior they didn't intend. Employees make compromised calls because the incentive structure never told them not to.
Values as an operating system
Albertson framed values as part of the operating system category, alongside the process and accountability structures a business needs. It becomes a "way of being" that has to sit alongside the "way of doing." A business can have clear steps for how work gets done and still make bad calls in the moments when a process doesn't cover them, if there's no ranked set of values beneath those steps to guide judgment.
For family businesses in particular, this matters at the moment a new person enters the system: a next-generation leader, an outside CEO, or a bridge executive. A longtime employee might be able to predict how a founder would respond to an ambiguous situation just from years of proximity. A new leader can't. A written, ranked set of values lets someone new make the same call the founder would have made without having to guess.
"A value only counts if you can point to the moment it cost you something, and you chose it anyway." — Bill Stranberg.
What should family business owners do next?
Family business owners who want help turning a values list into a decision-guiding tool during a leadership transition are welcome to start that conversation using the contact information below.
Establishing a hierarchy of values is a vital pillar in building a business that can function independently of the owner. Read the companion piece: "Building a Business That Runs Without the Owner: Why Exit Planning Starts Years Earlier Than Most Think."
FAQ
Why don't most company values statements work? Most values statements list broad, universally agreeable terms like "integrity" or "excellence" that don't specify how to act when two values pull in different directions. They end up as decoration rather than a real decision-making guide.
How do you know if a company's values are real or just for show? A real value is one where the business can point to a specific, costly decision it made because of it.
Why should company values be ranked instead of just listed? Ranking values gives employees a clear answer when two values conflict, such as customer service versus integrity, instead of leaving the decision to individual judgment in the moment.
How do values help a family business during a leadership transition? A written, ranked set of values lets a new leader, whether a next-generation family member or an outside executive, make the same kind of judgment call a longtime founder would have made, without years of proximity to guess at it.
Can a values statement change as a family business grows? Values themselves tend to stay stable, but how they're ranked and applied often needs to be revisited as new leadership, new markets, or new pressures test them against real decisions.
About the Authors
Bill Stranberg is Managing Partner of Stranberg, an executive search and succession advisory firm serving family enterprises. Stranberg works with family businesses navigating CEO succession, leadership transition, and outside executive search. Learn more at stranberg.com.
Justin Albertson works with owners who set out to build a business and ended up owning a job. He has been in those rooms for twenty years, first with Fortune 500 leadership teams and now mostly with privately held ones.
He works on the inside of the company: the leadership team, the accountability, the habits that let a business run without its owner, whether or not they ever sell it. Most of it comes down to an identity shift the owner has to make first, from being the person who produces the most to being the person who builds the team that does. That doesn't happen in a strategy session, it happens one conversation at a time.
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