Does Your Culture Prioritize Profits over Values?

What Matters Most: Does Your Culture Prioritize Profits over Values?
When push comes to shove and you or your business is struggling, which operating principle wins out – profits or values?  At strategic planning retreats, leaders spend a great deal of time crafting corporate values for leaders to model and employees to follow such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, diversity, excellence, etc.

How Many Companies Live Their Espoused Values on a Consistent Basis?
While the majority of companies declare values, far fewer consistently live or embed them into daily behavior. There is a substantial “say-do” gap in many organizations.

• The Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources found that only 40% of employees were aware of their company’s vision, mission and values.
• A Leadership IQ study found that only 24% of organizations had operationalized the specific behaviors necessary to truly live their values.

A Case in Point:  Espoused Corporate Values
Here’s a list of corporate values from a company website:

• We act with integrity and communicate honestly and openly.
• We are passionate about meeting our customers’ needs and delivering for our shareholders.
• We are accountable for all of our own actions: these include safety, protecting the environment, and supporting our communities.
• We work together as a team and are committed to excellence and innovation.
• We respect each other and celebrate our diversity.

An added note reads: “Never knowingly violate laws, regulations, policies, or standards, even if you think doing so would lower costs, increase earnings, or delight a customer.” Noble words, indeed.

Can you guess the organization behind these values? PG&E — the public utility now widely criticized for its role in multiple deadly wildfires in California.

The Reality:  Actual Corporate Behavior
Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal reveal that PG&E’s leaders long knew large portions of its nearly 19,000-mile electrical system had “reached the end of their useful lives.” Many high-voltage power lines were at risk of failure, capable of igniting catastrophic fires. Over the past six years, more than 1,500 California fires have been linked to PG&E equipment, including the deadliest in state history. Critics allege the company repeatedly prioritized investor dividends over public safety.

Mike Florio, a former California utilities commissioner, told The New York Times: “There was very much a focus on the bottom line over everything.” A 2017 report to state regulators noted that PG&E often acted only after disasters occurred.

Had executives genuinely lived their stated values — acting with integrity, communicating honestly, and prioritizing safety and the environment — critical upgrades would have been made long ago. Lives could have been saved, and the company might have avoided bankruptcy and dissolution.

Who’s to Blame?
The failure lies squarely in PG&E’s corporate culture. Culture, by definition, is how things truly get done — not what’s printed on a website. It reflects the beliefs, behaviors, and business practices that guide decisions, especially at the leadership level.

Employees take cues from leaders. Dedicated PG&E staff were undermined by executives who failed to model the behaviors they preached. Many employees, in turn, may have prioritized job security or promotions over speaking truth to power.

This case illustrates a fundamental principle: even small pockets of misaligned beliefs, behaviors, or decisions can snowball into systemic failure. When culture and values are out of alignment, the consequences can be devastating — for people, for the environment, and for the organization itself.

Does Your Company Culture Prioritize Profits Over Values?
If you are not sure, you would be wise to assess your current workplace culture to see where you stand in terms of:

• Organizational health
• Accountability and transparency
• Strategic alignment

The Bottom Line
As a business leader, you shape how people think, behave, and act. If you expect employees to uphold your corporate values, you must model them consistently — and enforce accountability when they are ignored. Ask yourself: are you truly prioritizing values over profit, or just paying them lip service?

To learn more about how to create the culture you want, download The 3 Research-Backed Levels of Culture that Leaders Must Get Right