We're going all the way to the top with this.

alues are like well-functioning elevators—they must work at many levels. While having an attractive lift in the office might make a great architectural or design impact, you'd probably have to agree that its true beauty lies in its function.

Whatever your organisational values are, we need to understand their essence and have a basic shared understanding of their meaning.

We also need to remember that we live our values in relation to other people. This way of looking at the values helps us feel confident in how we lead others, work together, lead ourselves and work with our clients and stakeholders.

In addition, we live the values through different situations, demonstrating them through our work activities and considering what they mean at a very practical level.

While it's everyone's role to engage with the values, there are additional requirements for Executives and senior leaders. They need to be explicit and vocal in communicating and modelling them by:

- Explaining how a decision, project or spending is in line with the values

- Being observed living the values in their relationships with others and in everyday situations

- Speaking up where values are done well or poorly

- Questioning how our values are factored into the thinking about what we do.

This isn't an additional task; it's a mindset - a way of being, doing, and communicating what matters in building the organisation's continued success.