The Care Factor Bringing Purpose and Values to Life
How small choices shape culture
I remember walking into a room in PNG and feeling a knot in my stomach. My worry was simple: what if no one spoke? Different culture. Different rules around hierarchy. If I just threw out a question, my belief was I’d get silence. And silence in a workshop can feel like failure.
So we changed the experience. I slowed the pace. Waited eight or ten seconds instead of rushing to fill the gap. I sat at the group’s level. Kept the tone conversational. Asked them to talk in pairs before bringing ideas back to the room. And right at the start I told them, “I need you to talk, because that helps everyone else.”
What happened next flipped my belief on its head. People opened up. They shared ideas that were sharp, thoughtful, and generous. By the end, everyone in the room had a voice.
That’s culture work. You change the experience, you shift the belief, the actions follow, and the results take care of themselves.
Culture Pyramid
The Culture Pyramid is a useful way to explain why that shift happened. At the base are experiences. Experiences form beliefs. Beliefs drive actions. Actions create results.
In PNG, a new kind of experience reshaped the belief about whether it was safe and expected to speak up. That new belief unlocked new actions, and the result was a stronger, more engaged team conversation.
Here’s another everyday example:
Experience: You start a new job and notice everyone is busy, tied up in meetings.
Belief: You assume the only way to get things done is to book a meeting yourself.
Action: You schedule another meeting.
Result: Everyone’s calendars get clogged with even more meetings.
That’s how small experiences snowball into beliefs, shape behaviours, and ultimately drive the culture.
How to Uncover Beliefs and Values
Most of us live by beliefs we’ve never said out loud. That’s the problem. Until you surface them, you can’t shape them. Two questions cut through:
When did you feel most proud? Proud moments shine a light on what you value.
What makes you angry? Anger points to the expectations you hold but never voice.
Beliefs show up in the heat of those moments. But when you zoom out and start to connect the dots, those repeated beliefs harden into values.
If beliefs are the day-to-day rules we live by, then values are the bigger patterns - the themes that tell us what really matters. And once you can name your values, you can decide which ones to celebrate, which ones to challenge, and which ones to bring to life with your team.
How to Bring Purpose and Values to Life
Plan on a page Boil down your purpose, vision, values, and actions to a single sheet. If it won’t fit above a desk, it’s too complicated.
Define “good” and “not good” Stop hiding behind clichés. Spell out what the values actually look like in practice. What should we see? What should we hear?
Ask better questions In development conversations: Which value do you want to focus on, and what’s one action you’ll take to live it? Simple. Specific. Sticky. Make this part of your annual objectives setting and reviews.
Own and organise culture High performance doesn’t just happen. You’ve got to own it and organise it. Three anchors help:
CliftonStrengths profile: Know what you do best and use it on purpose.
Boss to Coach: Five everyday conversations that turn management into coaching.
Team Health Check: A way to spot cracks in trust, clarity, and alignment before they turn into gaps
Shape the environment The fastest way to change behaviour isn’t another lecture. It’s changing the setting. Teachers know this: move the distracted kid to the front and the behaviour shifts. Leaders can do the same with spaces, processes, and rituals.
Story-driven values awards Once a month at your all-hands, the last winner stands up and tells the story of someone else in the team, what they did and which value it brought to life. The only rule is they can’t give it back to the person who just gave it to them. It’s the story that spreads the culture, not the trophy.
Brand the values Notebooks, mugs, t-shirts, screensavers, walls. Surround people with the message until it becomes the water they swim in.
Involve customers Values aren’t for internal PR. Make them a promise to clients. Build them into proposals and presentations. Show the stories of how you lived them. Invite customers to hold you to account. Could you send them an award, when you see alignment in action.
The Connection with Team Health
Team health isn’t about a temperature check once a year. It’s about the daily rhythm: experiences → beliefs → values → actions → results. If the experiences are strong, the beliefs line up. When beliefs line up, they reinforce the values. When values are clear, actions follow. And when actions follow, results take care of themselves.
That’s why team health matters. It’s not a side project. It’s the main game. Because every crack left unchecked becomes a gap, and every gap left unclosed becomes the culture.
Healthy teams don’t leave it to chance. They care enough to make the unsaid said, shape the environment to match, and tell stories that reinforce who they are at their best.
That’s the work. And it’s what keeps teams proud of the culture they build, not just once in a survey but every single day.