One protects the organisation. The other serves the system it operates in.
By Deano Gomes-Luis
Most organisations claim to be “values-driven.”
They publish principles.
They reference beliefs in decision-making.
They anchor culture in shared commitments.
From the inside, this feels principled and intentional.
And yet, many of these same organisations struggle to explain why outcomes remain disappointing.
I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly in organisations with strong cultural identity. Values are clear. Behaviour is consistent. No one is acting in bad faith.
But results still underperform.
What’s missing isn’t integrity.
It’s distinction.
Values-driven and value-driven are not variations of the same idea.
They sit on opposite causal logics.
And confusing them is one of the quietest ways organisations drift from impact.
Here’s the difference:
A values-driven organisation acts in accordance with its beliefs.
Action is justified by internal principles.
Success is measured by consistency: Did we act in line with our values?
A value-driven organisation — known as an ARP culture — adapts its actions until value is actually experienced.
Action is validated by external response.
Success is measured by impact: Did this create value for the recipient?
Same word.
Different physics.
Most leadership language commits a category error here.
Values-driven is internal justification.
Value-driven is external validation.
Because both use the word “value,” organisations slide between them without noticing — and accountability disappears.
Under the Action-Response Principle:
Action has no inherent value.
Value only exists in the response it produces.
That makes:
Values-driven → action legitimacy
Value-driven → action effectiveness
They answer different questions entirely.
This matters culturally because each optimises for something fundamentally different.
A values-driven culture optimises for:
Consistency
Identity
Internal coherence
Narrative safety
A value-driven (ARP) culture optimises for:
Responsiveness
Adaptation
External fit
Outcome truth
One protects the organisation.
The other serves the system it operates in.
Here’s the uncomfortable implication most frameworks avoid:
In an ARP culture:
Good intent is irrelevant
Alignment is insufficient
Effort is invisible
Only impact counts
Which is exactly why most organisations quietly retreat back to values-language when performance is questioned.
You see this pattern everywhere once you recognise it.
An initiative doesn’t land, and the explanation defaults to: “But we did the right thing.”
A strategy fails to mobilise, and the defence is: “We stayed true to our principles.”
A service disappoints, and the response is: “We followed our values.”
All of that may be true.
None of it addresses whether value was created.
This doesn’t mean abandoning values.
It means subordinating them to value.
The most powerful value an organisation can hold is this:
We adapt our actions until value is actually experienced.
That is ARP embedded as culture.
When response becomes a core organisational value — not aspiration, not sentiment, but accountability to impact — values and value finally align.
Strong values provide direction.
ARP ensures that direction produces results.
The organisations that make this shift don’t become unprincipled.
They become accountable.
They understand that acting consistently with beliefs is necessary — but not sufficient.
What matters is whether those actions produce the response they were designed for.
When they don’t, the action changes.
Not the story about the action.
Without that discipline, even the strongest values become untethered from reality.
Before defending your next decision on the basis of values alignment, it’s worth asking:
Are we explaining why we acted — or proving whether we should have?
That distinction determines whether culture drives performance or protects it from scrutiny.
Values explain why you acted.
Value proves whether you should have.
Confusing the two is how well-intentioned organisations stay busy while impact quietly erodes.
This article reflects ideas explored more fully in Beyond Execution, where I introduce the Action-Response Principle — a way of seeing how value is formed at the point of delivery, and why strong execution alone rarely creates the impact leaders expect.
The Action-Response Principle 