Most organizations can recite their values. Fewer can say what those values look like on an ordinary Tuesday, in a budget review, a handoff between departments, or a conversation about a missed deadline. When a value stays at the level of a word on a wall, employees learn the real rules from watching what happens.
Jim Marsh, Managing Principal of JEM Premier Coaching and author of Culture OS, describes his work as connecting values to behaviors to operating mechanisms, with leaders attending to what they reinforce, ignore, and tolerate. This framing is drawn from his public LinkedIn profile. This article takes that progression and explains how a leader might apply it. The scenario in the middle is an illustration written for this article. It is not a case study, and it does not come from any specific book chapter.
Step one: state the value in terms of a decision
A value such as "accountability" or "collaboration" sounds clear until two people interpret it differently. The first discipline is to ask what the value is supposed to change. Which decisions should come out differently because of it?
A leader who says "we value accountability" might mean that commitments are kept, or that problems are raised early, or that people own mistakes. Those are different expectations. Choose the one that matters most for how your team works now, and say it plainly.
Step two: translate the value into observable behaviors
A behavior is something a colleague could see or hear. "Be transparent" is a value. "Flag a risk to the project owner as soon as you see it, before the next status meeting" is a behavior. The test is simple: could someone else watch the team for a week and tell whether the behavior happened?
Write two or three behaviors per value, in plain language, using verbs. Check them with the people who must perform them. If the front line cannot recognize the behavior from their own work, it is still too abstract.
Step three: build operating mechanisms that make the behavior routine
Behaviors left to individual willpower fade under pressure. An operating mechanism is a regular practice, structure, or rule built into how work is done so the behavior becomes the easy path. Examples in general workplace practice include a standing agenda item for risks, a defined escalation route, a template for handoffs, or a recurring review of commitments.
The mechanism does the repeating so the leader does not have to. If a behavior depends on a leader reminding people every week, it has not yet become a mechanism.
An illustrative scenario
The following is a hypothetical example for explanation only.
Imagine a leadership team that names "ownership" as a core value. In practice, projects that slip are discussed at length in meetings, but no single person is asked what went wrong or what they will change. Over time, people learn that ownership means volunteering for visible wins.
The leader decides to make the value concrete. First, she states what she means: when an owner sees that a commitment is at risk, they say so before the due date and propose a new date or a trade. Second, she defines behaviors: the owner raises the risk in the weekly review, with a recommended option. Peers respond with a decision, not blame. Third, she builds mechanisms: a commitments list showing a named owner and due date for every item, a fixed slot in the weekly review for at-risk items, and a rule that a changed date requires a short written reason.
None of these steps require new software or a new slogan. They change what happens in the room.
What you reinforce, ignore, and tolerate
Jim's framing directs a leader's attention to three verbs. What do you reinforce? What do you ignore? What do you tolerate? Employees read these signals carefully, because they indicate which stated values carry consequences.
- Reinforce: What behavior gets noticed, thanked, promoted, or protected? A leader who thanks someone for raising an early warning reinforces transparency more than a poster does.
- Ignore: What passes without comment? A missed handoff nobody mentions is a quiet signal that handoffs are optional.
- Tolerate: What do you see, know is contrary to the value, and let continue? Tolerating a high performer who bypasses agreed decision rights tells everyone the rules apply selectively.
An honest audit of these three lists often reveals gaps between stated values and practice, and the leader's own behavior is part of that evidence.
A short exercise for your leadership team
- Pick one stated value that matters for a current priority.
- Write the decision or situation where that value should change what people do.
- List two or three observable behaviors that would show the value in action.
- For each behavior, name the existing meeting, template, or rule that supports it. If none exists, design one.
- List what the leadership team currently reinforces, ignores, and tolerates in relation to that behavior. Note where the lists contradict the value.
- Choose one change to make in the next thirty days, and one person to check whether it happened.
Keep the scope small
Resist the urge to rework every value at once. One value, tied to one live priority, with a few behaviors and one or two mechanisms, produces learning quickly. Teams that try to redesign everything often finish with a long document and no change in the Tuesday meeting.
To learn more about Jim's background and books, visit the About section. If your leadership team wants help building these practices around a live priority, the Culture-to-Execution Sprint is JEM's 12-week engagement for intact teams.