Almost every organization has a list of values: customer focus, trust, collaboration, innovation, transparency. These values appear on the website, on meeting room walls and in recruitment presentations. What actually teaches employees the culture, however, is something else: who gets promoted, what happens to someone who makes a mistake, and which one wins when a target conflicts with a value. In this article we explain how to measure the gap between stated values and lived culture, how to translate values into measurable behaviors, sample items, and how to interpret the results.
- Stated values are what an organization says about itself; lived culture is the set of real priorities shown by decisions, rewards and manager behavior. The difference between the two is called the say-do gap.
- The most common mistake in measuring values is asking about the value by name. Instead of an item like "Our company is customer focused", use items that translate the value into observable behaviors.
- Values should be measured at three levels: colleagues and the team, managers and senior leadership, and the organization's systems (promotion, recognition, performance reviews).
- The most useful findings are usually the differences between values, the perception gap between leadership and employees, and the answer to "do our systems actually reward this value?"
Stated values and lived culture
Edgar Schein describes culture in three levels: artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions. A company's list of values belongs to the second level; it describes what the organization says about itself. Everyday behavior, however, is often guided by the third level, the beliefs taken for granted without question. We covered these levels in detail in our article what is an organizational culture survey.
When the two levels are aligned, values truly guide behavior. When they are not, the list of values becomes decoration. The table below gives a few examples of how this gap looks in everyday work:
| Stated value | What the lived culture shows |
|---|---|
| "We are open to mistakes and support experimentation." | The person responsible for a failed project is passed over in the next promotion round. |
| "Transparency" | Employees learn about important decisions from the press or from rumors. |
| "Collaboration" | The bonus system is tied only to individual or unit targets. |
| "Customer focus" | Resolving a customer complaint requires approval three levels up. |
| "Our people are our most valuable asset" | Overtime is taken for granted and leave requests have to be justified. |
This difference is called the say-do gap. How clearly employees see the gap matters as much as the gap itself. When an organization keeps talking about its values while behavior stays the same, employees start to distrust not only that value but what the organization says in general.
Why measure your values?
- To see the impact of your values work: Defining and launching values is usually a significant investment. Without measurement, there is no way to know whether it has turned into behavior.
- To choose where to focus: Not all five values may be lived to the same degree. Measurement shows which value has the largest gap.
- To make conversations with managers concrete: Instead of saying "we need to live our values", saying "few people in your team believe someone can openly admit a mistake" is a far more useful starting point for change.
- To find contradictions in your systems: The source of the gap is often not people but processes that contradict the value: the bonus system, promotion criteria, approval authorities.
Translating values into measurable behaviors
The most common mistake in measuring values is asking about the value by name. Items such as "Trust is important in our company" or "Our company is customer focused" fail for two reasons: every employee interprets the value differently, and because most people view the value positively, the item scores high. In the end you measure how much the value is liked, not how much it is lived.
The right approach is to translate each value into three or four behaviors employees can see for themselves. For each value, ask: "If this value were truly lived, what would an employee see in everyday work?"
| Value | Weak item | Behavioral item |
|---|---|---|
| Openness to mistakes | Making mistakes is accepted in our company. | When someone in my team makes a mistake, they can say so openly without fear of blame. |
| Transparency | Our company is transparent. | The reasons behind decisions that affect me are explained to me after they are made. |
| Collaboration | We value collaboration. | When I ask another department for help, I get timely and willing support. |
| Customer focus | The customer always comes first. | I can make the decisions needed to solve a customer's problem without waiting for approval. |
| Results orientation | We value success. | The people who get promoted here are the ones who really deliver results. |
A good behavioral item is:
- Observable: Employees can rate the behavior from their own experience.
- About one thing only: Avoid items that combine two topics, such as "Information is shared and decisions are made quickly". We covered this and similar mistakes in common survey question mistakes.
- About a difficult moment: Values are tested not on easy days but when a value conflicts with a target. Phrases such as "even under target pressure..." measure the real strength of a value.
- In the organization's own language: Use the terms and examples people use in your organization.
Measuring value alignment at three levels
Whether a value is lived depends on whose behavior you are looking at. It therefore helps to spread the items for each value across three levels:
| Level | What it shows | Sample item (for collaboration) |
|---|---|---|
| Colleagues and the team | How widespread the value is among employees | People in my team share their knowledge with each other willingly. |
| Managers and senior leadership | How far leaders role-model the value | Senior leadership resolves disagreements between departments with the whole organization's interest in mind. |
| The organization's systems | How far processes support the value | The support I give to other teams is taken into account in my performance review. |
The difference between the three levels is often the most revealing finding. If employees rate collaboration high at team level but low at system level, the problem is not people but the bonus and performance system. If it is low at manager level, the value is not being modeled from the top. For manager-related items, see also our article on manager evaluation survey questions.
Methods for measuring values
Behavioral items
The most common method is to ask items like those above on a 5-point Likert scale. Three to five items per value are enough. For an organization with five values, this means a section of 15 to 25 items. Values items can be added as a section of the annual engagement survey.
Comparing importance and practice
Two questions are asked for each value: "How important is this value for the organization's success?" and "How much is this value lived in the organization today?" Values with high importance and low practice are priority areas. This method is short and easy to understand, but because it asks about the value by name it cannot replace behavioral items; it should be used to complement them.
Asking for observed values freely
Without showing the list of company values, you can ask employees "What three words best describe this organization?" or "Which behaviors are really rewarded here?" Compared with the stated values, the words that come up give a very clear picture of the lived culture. To analyze these questions, you can use the methods in our article on open-ended employee survey questions.
Critical incidents
Questions such as "Can you describe a moment in the last six months when you saw the company values truly lived?" and "Have you seen a decision or behavior that contradicted the values?" provide very rich data in focus groups and interviews. They can also be added to the survey, but employees need to be confident about anonymity.
Organizational data
You can also check how far values are reflected in systems using data outside the survey: whether the performance reviews of promoted employees include values behaviors, which behaviors are rewarded in the recognition program, and whether values are explored in recruitment interviews.
How to interpret the results
When reading the results of a values assessment, look at these comparisons:
- Differences between values: Calculate the favorable score for each value and place them side by side. The lowest value is the first area to focus on. Instead of trying to improve every value at once, choose one or two.
- Differences between levels: Compare the scores for the same value at team, manager and system level. Where is the gap largest?
- Differences between leadership and employees: It is very common for senior leadership to see the values as far more lived than employees do. If this gap is large, leadership is judging the organization by its stated values, while employees judge it by what they experience.
- Differences between units: A value may be strong in some units and weak in others. These differences often come from the manager. We explain how to read subcultures in our article on subcultures.
- Comparison with free responses: How well do the words employees use to describe the organization match the stated values? If a value never comes up, it has not yet gained meaning in the organization.
A sample results table might look like this:
| Value | Team level | Manager level | System level | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer focus | 81% | 74% | 66% | A strong and balanced value |
| Collaboration | 78% | 59% | 38% | Systems do not support this value |
| Openness to mistakes | 52% | 44% | 41% | Weak at every level; a priority area |
The figures in the table are for illustration only.
Common mistakes
- Asking about the value by name: As explained above, these items measure affection, not behavior.
- Asking employees about their own behavior: An item like "I am open to collaboration" almost always scores high. Ask employees not about themselves but about what they see around them.
- Measuring right after launching the values: In this period, answers measure awareness of the values. Measure the baseline before the values are launched and progress at least a year later.
- Not protecting anonymity enough: Values items, especially those about managers, are sensitive. If employees think their answers can be traced, they give the "right" answer. We covered this in anonymity in employee surveys.
- Not sharing the results: Asking about values without sharing the results widens the very say-do gap you are measuring.
What to do if the gap is large
When the say-do gap is large, there are two options. The first is to bring behavior closer to the value. The most effective way is to start with the systems that contradict the value most: promotion criteria, bonus structure, approval authorities and the way managers are evaluated. Training and communication about values do not produce lasting results while systems stay the same.
The second option is to redefine the value. Sometimes measurement reveals that a value is not one the organization truly wants to hold. In that case, moving to a definition that honestly expresses the organization's real priorities is healthier for trust than holding on to the value.
Whichever option you choose, share the results with employees, acknowledge the gap and track progress with the same items in the next measurement. We explain how to manage this process in our article on measuring culture change.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between stated values and lived culture?
Stated values are the explicitly expressed values found on the company website, office walls and presentations. Lived culture is which behaviors are actually rewarded, how decisions are made and how managers behave under pressure. In Edgar Schein's model, this distinction matches the difference between espoused values and basic assumptions.
How do you measure whether company values are being lived?
Each value is translated into three or four behaviors employees can observe, and an anonymous survey asks how often these behaviors are seen. Items are written to measure the behavior of colleagues, managers and the organization's systems separately. Survey results are complemented with focus groups and open-ended questions.
Why is it a mistake to ask about a value by name?
Items such as "Integrity is important in our company" are understood differently depending on how each employee interprets the value, and they usually score high. Such an item measures how much the value is liked, not how much it is lived. Behavioral items show concretely what is missing.
What should you do if the say-do gap is large?
There are two options: bring behaviors closer to the value, or redefine the value if it is not one the organization truly wants to hold. For the first option, the most effective levers are manager behavior and the promotion, recognition and performance review processes. Ignoring the gap leads to cynicism among employees.
