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Perpetual: Reads | The Value of Core Values

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands.

The Value of Core Values

Why Perpetual recommends it

Lisa Huetteman’s The Value of Core Values makes the case that core values only earn their name if they genuinely shape decisions when it’s inconvenient to follow them, otherwise they’re just words on a wall. The book walks through five keys to values-centred leadership, grounded in real organisational examples of values used as an actual filter for strategy, hiring and culture.

Huetteman is particularly clear-eyed about the gap between espoused values, the ones companies print on posters, and enacted values, the ones actually visible in how people are treated, promoted and let go. She argues most values initiatives fail not because the values themselves are wrong, but because leadership never closes that gap.

The book’s most useful contribution is a set of practical questions leaders can use to test whether a stated value is real: would we still choose it if it cost us a sale, a star performer, or a shortcut to a deadline. Values that survive that test are the ones actually running the organisation.

This is exactly the standard we try to hold ourselves to at Perpetual, our own values only mean something if they show up in the decisions that are genuinely inconvenient to make.

  • Values only matter if they hold up when following them is inconvenient
  • There’s a real gap between espoused values and enacted values in most organisations
  • The test of a real value is whether you’d still choose it at a cost
  • Values should function as an active filter, not a static statement

A worthwhile exercise for any leadership team is running your last major decision back through your stated values and being honest about whether they actually shaped the outcome.

We give this book three and a half out of five stars.

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