Company Values: Examples and a Practical Team Workshop

Company values are principles that help people choose how to work, especially when there is a trade-off. A useful value describes an action a teammate can recognize: explain a decision, own a handoff, listen to a customer, or make room for a different perspective. A word such as “excellence” needs examples before it can guide a real decision.

This guide helps you define those behaviors and practice them. The examples and workshop below are original templates, not claims about customer results. If your values are already defined and you want to configure recognition, go to the company values in Slack guide.

What is the difference between a mission, a value, and a goal?

Three different jobs for your company language

Term	Question it answers	Illustrative example
Mission	Why does our organization exist?	Make useful software accessible to small teams.
Value	How should we make decisions and work together?	Make the next step clear: explain decisions and leave a usable handoff.
Goal	What specific outcome are we working toward?	Publish a revised onboarding guide this quarter.

Values should help when goals compete. If speed and reliability both matter, explain when to release a small experiment and when to stop for a review. Otherwise people are left guessing which slogan takes priority.

12 company values with behaviors you can recognize

Use these as starting points. Choose the ones your team can explain with real work, then rewrite them in your own language. The boundaries matter as much as the positive examples.

Values, observable behaviors, and boundaries

Value	What it looks like	What it should not require
Ownership	Name the next owner and stay with a handoff until it is accepted.	Personally fixing every problem or staying available all night.
Customer focus	Check the customer’s problem before committing to a solution.	Agreeing to every request regardless of cost or impact.
Clarity	Document the decision, reason, and next step where others can find them.	Writing a long document for every small decision.
Learning	Share what an experiment taught you, including an unsuccessful result.	Celebrating avoidable mistakes without changing the process.
Inclusion	Invite written input from people who cannot attend the meeting.	Expecting everyone to communicate in the same way.
Craft	Check the details that affect the person using your work.	Delaying useful work indefinitely in search of perfection.
Integrity	Correct an inaccurate number and explain what changed.	Hiding uncertainty to appear confident.
Collaboration	Agree interfaces, owners, and handoffs before parallel work begins.	Requiring everyone to approve every decision.
Care	Ask what support would make a difficult task manageable.	Guessing or publicizing someone’s private circumstances.
Simplicity	Remove a step that no longer helps the user or team.	Skipping a necessary quality or security check.
Resourcefulness	Try a small, reversible solution with the resources available.	Working around access controls or concealing a resource shortage.
Sustainable pace	Flag a capacity problem early and agree what to defer.	Rewarding repeated emergencies as evidence of commitment.

What you can learn from published company values

Atlassian’s values page pairs memorable names with explanations about openness, customer perspective, teamwork, and improvement. The useful lesson is to explain how a value influences work instead of leaving readers with a short label alone.

GitLab’s public values handbook provides detailed written guidance behind its values. Use the depth as a prompt: could a new teammate find enough context to understand what your value means in a situation they have not encountered before?

These are references, not templates to copy word for word or endorsements of Karl. Sources reviewed 12 September 2026. Your values need to describe your own choices and constraints.

A 60-minute workshop to define your company values

Invite people from different roles and levels of tenure. Ask them beforehand for a recent example of work they were proud of and a decision that was difficult. Keep customer and personal details out of shared notes.

1. Minutes 0–10: collect real moments. Each person writes an example silently before discussion. Ask what happened, who benefited, and which behavior made the difference.
2. Minutes 10–25: group the behaviors. Put similar actions together. Look for patterns such as a careful handoff, a clear explanation, or asking for another perspective. Do not choose names yet.
3. Minutes 25–40: write a draft. Choose a small set of distinct principles. For each, write a short name, one sentence explaining it, two behaviors, and one boundary.
4. Minutes 40–50: test a trade-off. Apply the drafts to a real scenario: a customer requests a shortcut, a deadline moves forward, or two teams disagree. If the value offers no guidance, revise it.
5. Minutes 50–60: choose an owner and a review date. Publish the draft, invite asynchronous feedback, and agree when to review examples from actual work. Treat the first version as something to test.

The timing is a suggested agenda, not a guarantee that a company can settle its values in one meeting. Larger teams may need separate listening sessions and a longer review.

A company-value template you can reuse

• Name: Make the next step clear.
• Meaning: Leave decisions and handoffs understandable to the person who continues the work.
• We recognize: a release note that answers support’s questions; a decision record that explains the trade-off.
• Boundary: clarity does not mean documenting every conversation or delaying urgent work for polished prose.
• Decision test: can the next person act without asking the original author to repeat the context?
• Review: collect a few examples and ask what remains unclear after the first month.

Connect values to recognition without forcing the wording

Start with the contribution, then connect the value. “You showed ownership” is less useful than describing the gap someone noticed and the handoff they completed.

Thanks @Sam for recording the release decisions and the remaining owners. Support could start the handoff without another meeting. That is a great example of making the next step clear.

This is an illustrative message. Replace the name and details with work you observed. Our 24 Slack kudos examples include customer work, mentoring, quiet contributions, and inclusion.

In Karl, use the kudos command and confirmation workflow to share the contribution and select an appropriate configured value. The values setup guide covers the product workflow; this article helps you decide what those values should mean.

Review the examples after a month

• Can people explain each value? Ask for an example in their own words.
• Are some roles missing? Look beyond launches and visible customer wins to maintenance, coordination, and mentoring.
• Do two values mean the same thing? Combine or distinguish overlapping definitions.
• Did a value help resolve a trade-off? Save the decision as an example for onboarding.
• Are people chasing counts? Remove quotas and bring the discussion back to specific work and its context.

A recognition leaderboard can help you find stories to review, but a count is not evidence of job performance or cultural fit. Do not turn values into a popularity test.

Common questions

How many company values should we have?

Start with the smallest set that covers genuinely different decisions. Three to five is a practical workshop starting point, not a universal rule. A shorter list with clear examples is easier to explain than a long list of overlapping words.

Can company values change?

Yes. When a principle no longer helps the team make decisions, explain what changed and invite feedback on a revision. Keep useful examples so the transition is understandable.

Should every kudos have a company value?

Decide that as part of your program. A value can add context, but an ill-fitting tag does not improve a thoughtful message. Teach the examples first and review the effect of any required-tag setting with your team.