Should we hold onto the values we started out with?

Over the past few weeks, my wife and I have been discussing values. I recently started a new job, and we were talking about how company values influence company culture. We then started some philosophical discussions on how our own values may have changed over time. We concluded that they have changed, and if that’s the case, then surely businesses’ values should also change over time.

In the case of people, life events, such as having a child or the passing of a loved one, tend to change your perspective on things, and therefore, your values tend to shift or change. It has to be the same for a company or business entity.

Consider culture—sometimes described as “the way we do things around here.” Think of most companies you’ve worked at for more than five years… odds are, things aren’t the same. Whether it’s a change in leadership, industry demands, external pressures like COVID, or even just natural turnover, if the culture has changed, surely the values need to evolve too.

Daniel Coyle, in The Culture Code, talks about how groups evolve through leadership shifts, crises, and feedback loops. It’s a great reminder that culture is never static. It breathes, adjusts, and reacts internally and externally to what’s going on.

Now, on the flip side, Jim Collins in Good to Great talks about enduring values—things that don’t change. He looked at high-performing companies that beat the market consistently and found that their values often stayed rock-solid. That study started in the 1970s, and while I think those findings were brilliant, I’d argue that the rate of change we’re seeing today is dramatically different. We operate in a landscape shaped by rapid tech advancement, global crises, and shifting generational expectations. So maybe those enduring values need a refresh—or at least, a re-examination.

Here’s a thought: maybe it’s not that values need to change completely, but they need to be redefined in the current context. “Integrity” in the 1980s might’ve meant something very different in a top-down, command-and-control culture. Today, it might mean transparency, psychological safety, or vulnerability with your team. Same word, very different execution.

And this brings us back to leadership. If we as leaders are expecting people to show up in new ways, adapt to new expectations, and tackle fresh challenges, we’ve got to be the first to model that. That might mean revisiting the company’s stated values—asking if they still match how we do things now. And if they don’t? Time to update them.

There’s also a people element here we can’t ignore. New joiners, especially younger employees, want to know what the company stands for. Not just the slick values written on a website, but how those show up in real-life decisions. Do we hire based on them? Do we promote based on them? Do we challenge behaviour that goes against them?

And honestly, if we want to build cultures that are resilient, inclusive, and high-performing, then values can’t be sacred. They’ve got to grow with us. A value like “innovation” doesn’t mean anything if you punish people for trying new things and failing. A value like “respect” rings hollow if leaders don’t call out toxic behaviour when it happens.

So here’s the takeaway: revisit your values. Reflect on them the way you’d reflect on your own personal growth. Are they helping you lead in today’s world, or are they holding you to standards that no longer serve your people or your goals?

Culture isn’t created overnight, and it doesn’t stay frozen in time. It evolves. It should evolve. And the values driving that evolution? Those need to be kept in check, tuned up, and—when necessary—rewritten.