Values & Non-Negotiables

Pick a few values, say what each looks like in practice and what it has cost you, decide which wins when two collide, and name the lines you will not cross and who can call you out.

Practice, not research: this page is working craft with no research claim attached. The cap of four values, the number of statements and the review rhythm are rules of thumb.

Use it when:

• You have stepped into a role where you make calls that affect other people, or you run your own business and set its rules.
• You keep feeling uneasy about decisions but cannot say exactly which line was crossed.
• You are about to face a hard choice (a restructuring, a client who asks for something questionable, a conflict of loyalties) and want your position clear first.

Skip it when:

• You need to make one specific decision now: use 3.6 Decision-Making Checklist, and come back here afterwards.
• The question is how you lead day to day rather than what you stand for: use 3.4 Leadership Style Snapshot.

This is working craft, not research. The logic is that values only steer behavior once they are specific, ranked and costly. Anyone can list admirable words; the words start doing work when you can say what each one looks like in practice, which one wins when two collide, and what you would refuse to do even at real personal cost. Under pressure, nobody consults a list of abstractions. People fall back on what they have rehearsed, so the craft is translation: from value to behavior, from behavior to boundary, and from boundary to a sentence you could say out loud in the meeting where it is tested.

The page follows that chain. Step 1 caps the list and asks for a moment each value cost you, because a value that has never cost anything is decoration. Step 2 turns values into always and never statements. Step 3 forces the ranking that shows your real order rather than your stated one, and Step 4 draws red lines and names the people allowed to hold you to them.

Pick up to four values. Define each in your own words, write what someone would see you do, and name a time it cost you something or you fell short of it. Describe behavior; you do not need to write anything about religion, politics or health.

Strong answer: "Candor. Means: people hear bad news from me first, not through the grapevine. In practice: I told the crew about the lost contract the same morning I heard. Fell short: I delayed telling a supplier we were switching, because I dreaded the call." Not: "Integrity: being honest."

Illustrative example: the business, the roles and the details are made up.

The co-owner of a small electrical contracting firm in Norway, with eleven staff, fills in the page after a tense bid.

Step 1: candor (bad news first, in person); craft (no job leaves until it meets the standard she would accept in her own home; fell short when she let a rushed job pass before a holiday); fairness (the same rules for apprentices and senior electricians).

Step 2: "I will always tell a customer about a delay before they notice it." "I will never price a job below what it takes to do it safely."

Step 3: speed vs. thoroughness: thoroughness wins on anything touching safety; speed wins on paperwork. Example: she turned down a rush request to energize a site before the inspection. People vs. performance: she kept an apprentice on a slower team for a month rather than moving him to a high-pressure job too early.

Step 4: escalate if asked to sign off unseen work; walk away from any client who asks her to skip the inspection. Her business partner and the senior foreman can call her out. Review each January.