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Comment by karatinversion | Hacker News Reader

A company always consists of individuals that have to make trade-offs, so to the extent it has a cohesive culture at all, it will have values that are expressed in those trade-offs. But values (or anti-values) that a company publicly espouses do not need to coincide with its actual values: a value statement of being inclusive does not prevent a culture of bullying, and a value statement of putting the customer first does not prevent the actual value being to screw the customer whenever profitable.

"Descriptive" vs "aspirational" values, if you will.

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This actual vs described values mismatch is a red flag and it could be an easy way to discover toxic culture. When applying for a job, you usually have multiple interviews - HR, team, direct manager. It makes sense to ask all of them about their values and compare the answers.

I’d say the opposite, there needs to be a delta between values and actual behavior.

I want to be a good husband, dedicated employee, etc. Am I? I’d like to think more often than not. But we all err, and I value the transparency/courage to ack that we are not perfect on our values and still have a long way to go.

For me the a flag would be if a person/company is not willing to acknowledge they are not as good as they public values are. (Because how can they improve if they can’t even ack it).

You mean that you should not hide of the difference between values and behavior?

Because there's nothing on that comment that actually supports the difference. And if you are being honest, descriptive values should describe your behavior very closely.

The thing you're struggling with is the parent's humility.

Value: be great at everything all the time

Parent: I try very hard but often fail

You: then you must be dishonest about your values

Humility is a virtue not a vice.

Not the OP, but that situation seems to indicate espousing unrealistic values at the least or am I misreading what you are saying?

> then you must be dishonest about your values

Hum, no, but then he is talking about the "aspirational values" that the GP pointed.

There are some reasonable explanations though:

* The actual values have changed over time but the value statement hadn't been updated in a while

* Different parts of the company genuinely have different values

I don't think either of those necessarily indicate a toxic culture.

Totally agree that it does not point to toxic culture per se. It's just an easy way to spot something wrong at this angle.

Though both explanations may also point to something:

* If values changed, but company did not bother to communicate them, then they are not important and not applied in daily life. This is not necessarily a bad thing at the moment of observation, but it may lay a foundation to toxic culture eventually.

* If different parts of the company have different values, then the decisions where those values would have been applied may result in a conflict between those parts. Red flag.

IMO the only way to have aspirational values is to make them part of perf/the job ladder. Most typical "value statements" ought to be descriptive.

A big reason why Amazon's leadership principles (LP) are so ingrained into its culture is because it's a part of every single formal process in the company. If not officially (promo docs, interviews), then at the least implicitly (corrections of errors [COE]).

This is true and i am inclined to try and ask questions about them. My last company had a “no jerks” policy and i was floored when they actually followed through in firing a (talented) PM who was kind of a jerk. One warning, then he was gone as fast as he came.

I’m not sure i could ask smart and direct enough questions to really assess this but hope i can at least sniff out the bs.

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