Against brand values
Five adjectives on a wall change nothing. What a brand does when being itself is inconvenient: that is the value.
Almost every brand arrives with a values slide. Five adjectives, usually including some version of authentic, human and innovative. Almost none of them can point to a decision those words changed.
Values are revealed, not declared
A value only exists at the point where it costs something. If being generous has never meant refunding someone you did not have to refund, generosity is not a value. It is a mood. If being honest has never meant losing a sale, honesty is decoration.
Ask what the brand does when the value is inconvenient. That answer is the real one.
Why the adjectives persist
Because they are safe. Nobody argues with authentic. It commits the business to nothing, offends no one in the room, and can be signed off in an afternoon. The words that would actually shape behaviour are the ones somebody would object to, which is precisely why they never make the slide.
A better exercise
Instead of writing values, write down the three decisions the business has made in the last year that a competitor would not have made. Then write what each one cost. Those are your values, already operating, already true.
Name them and stop inventing new ones. A brand does not need more adjectives. It needs to notice what it is already doing.