Company values are more than just words on a wall — they can be powerful tools for overcoming business challenges. We asked industry experts to describe a time when their companies’ values guided their actions and helped them overcome a challenge. Discover how values-driven approaches can transform company culture and drive success.
- Values as Survival Tools During Pandemic
- Compassion First Approach Transforms Recovery Center
- Empathy and Partnership Guide Difficult Decisions
- Balancing Empathy and Clarity in Estate Planning
- Taking Action to Improve User Experience
- Honesty Over Hype Strengthens Client Relationships
- Revitalizing Core Values Transforms Company Culture
- Authentic Expertise Overcomes Client Pressure
- Transparency Builds Trust in Client Relations
- Brutal Honesty Accelerates SEO Recovery
- Developer-First Transparency Turns Crisis into Advantage
- Integrity Guides Ethical Decision-Making in Law
- Values-Based Leadership Navigates Rapid Growth
- Trust Through Communication Resolves Platform Issues
- Community Values Drive Collective Problem-Solving
- Values Guide Crisis Response in Ukraine
How Company Values Help Overcome Challenges
Values as Survival Tools During Pandemic
As someone who steered my team through a global pandemic without laying off a single employee, I can tell you that values aren’t just wall decorations — they’re survival tools.
During COVID-19, when most companies were cutting costs and staff, our core value of “your success is my success” was put to the ultimate test. I had clients who couldn’t pay their bills, and my own revenue dropped significantly. The easy business decision would have been layoffs and dropping struggling clients.
Instead, I absorbed the financial hit personally and kept working with clients who were behind on payments. I even helped other local small businesses strategize their survival plans for free. We treated every client’s business like it was our own, even when it hurt our bottom line.
The result? Not only did we keep our entire team employed, but those clients we supported during their darkest moments became our most loyal advocates. They referred so much business to us afterward that we actually grew stronger than before the pandemic. Sometimes the “bad” business decision is actually the best long-term investment you can make.
Nicole Farber
CEO, Nicole Farber
Compassion First Approach Transforms Recovery Center
A few years ago, we had a patient walk through our doors in the midst of withdrawal, angry, yelling, and ready to swing. Every instinct told us to call the police — but that’s not who we are.
We lead with compassion first. Always. It doesn’t matter how messy the situation looks. That’s our value: meet people where they are. No judgment, just presence.
So instead of reacting, I stepped in myself. I sat down across from him. I didn’t talk at him. I just listened. Ten minutes later, he broke down crying. He hadn’t used his real name in two years. He didn’t trust anyone. He thought we’d throw him out the second we saw how bad it was. But we didn’t. We stayed. That moment turned everything around for him — and honestly, for me too.
It reminded me why I started this place. We’re not here to just run a program. We’re here to hold space for people when they’re at rock bottom and can’t see a way forward. That’s not in any manual — that comes from values.
We’ve had rough months. Burnouts, tight budgets, tough calls on staffing. But every time, the same value pulls us through: show up authentically, stay grounded, and don’t forget why we’re here. If we lose that, we’re just another business. And I didn’t build my company to be just another business.
Values don’t hang on a wall here. They’re what we live out when it’s hard, when it’s inconvenient, when it costs something.
That guy who walked in ready to fight? He finished the program. He sends thank-you notes every year.
That’s what happens when values lead the way.
Andy Danec
Owner, Ridgeline Recovery LLC
Empathy and Partnership Guide Difficult Decisions
For me, values show their real weight when you’re facing uncomfortable decisions. We once worked with a client who consistently delayed feedback and gave vague “yes” or “no” answers after interviews, even when we pushed for specifics. It left candidates hanging and our team stuck, unable to give proper closure or next steps. This felt wrong.
We paused and looked back at our values: empathy and partnership. That means treating candidates with respect and expecting the same from clients. So we made the call to end the collaboration, politely but firmly. It’s not always easy walking away from a paying client, but protecting how we work matters more. We’ve found over time that when values align, everything else flows more easily. When they don’t, no checklist can fix it.
Ann Kuss
CEO, Outstaff Your Team
Balancing Empathy and Clarity in Estate Planning
One of our firm’s core values, empathy, was crucial during a challenging estate planning case for a blended family. The client wanted to provide for his new spouse, children from a previous marriage, and honor charitable bequests to his late first wife. This created complex family dynamics with unspoken tensions.
Our empathy guided us to listen intently to each family member, acknowledging their feelings and building trust to facilitate difficult but necessary conversations. This allowed us to navigate emotional complexities beyond just legal documents.
Simultaneously, clarity was paramount. We translated intricate legal mechanisms into understandable terms, meticulously explaining trusts, property considerations, and tax implications. We drafted unambiguous documents and facilitated family meetings to ensure everyone understood the plan, minimizing future conflict.
By prioritizing empathy and clarity, we crafted an estate plan that met legal objectives and fostered fairness and understanding within the family. It proved how human connection and clear communication are as vital as legal expertise in overcoming complex estate planning challenges.
Andrew Hope
Attorney & Founder, Hope Law Firm
Taking Action to Improve User Experience
One of our values is “bias for action.” This means if there is something you think will have a positive impact within the company, you should just do it. It’s better to take action than wait.
When I first started my role, this was new for me. While I’ve always been a self-starter type, I was used to being in roles that required me to get permission for bigger projects or ideas. Suddenly being in a role where I could truly lead myself was an adjustment.
As I started to settle into my role, one of the pain points for me as the community manager was our account flag process. The messaging caused a lot of friction with users, and I would often have to over-explain or push back since users felt like our policy and requirements were not clear.
I expressed my concerns to our product manager, and her message to me was “bias for action.” With that, I jumped into rethinking our flag flow, writing new copy, and making the experience more personal.
By further defining flags for our current issues and making the messages read as if they were coming directly from us, rather than sounding like generic notifications, I noticed that users started to change how they responded to the flags, and there was less pushback or confusion towards the flags and how to resolve them. As time has passed, I would say my time spent on flags went from 3-5 hours a week to one hour a week.
I never ran this change by our CEO or asked for his OK to adjust the flag workflow. Outside of a general review from our PM to ensure that what I wanted to build worked from a technical perspective and being a second pair of eyes for the copy, this was done because I felt it was important and would be beneficial for the company.
Haley Spracale
Community Manager, Featured
Honesty Over Hype Strengthens Client Relationships
Our core value is simple but non-negotiable: honesty over hype.
We’ve built our agency around being transparent, direct, and real with clients — even when it’s uncomfortable. That value has shaped our brand voice, our proposals, and how we handle client relationships.
One time, it was put to the test.
We were midway through a large branding and web design project for a fast-scaling startup. Big client. Tight deadlines. A lot was riding on the launch. But about three weeks in, we realized something: their internal team was giving us incomplete information. Key assets were delayed. Feedback was vague. Timelines were slipping — not because of us, but because the client was in chaos.
The easy route would have been to play along. Keep the project going, bill more hours, and let it drag. But that’s not how we operate.
We paused the project and set up an emergency call with the founders. I said, “We’re heading toward a launch that’s going to disappoint everyone — not because the design is wrong, but because we’re building on unclear direction. I’d rather stop now and realign than deliver something we can’t stand behind.”
It was a risky move. We’d already been paid a deposit. They could have walked away. But they didn’t.
They actually thanked us. No one else had called out the internal dysfunction. They paused their own timeline, clarified decision-makers, and brought in a project lead. When we resumed, things flowed. We hit the deadline. And the final product launched to rave reviews. More importantly, they became long-term clients — and referred us to two others.
What guided us in that moment wasn’t a contract or KPI. It was our commitment to doing honest, impactful work. Saying the hard thing instead of nodding along. Valuing trust over short-term gain.
That challenge could have turned into a mess. But leaning on our core value — honesty over hype — turned it into one of the most successful client relationships we’ve had.
Values aren’t just brand statements. They’re decision filters. In high-pressure moments, they help you act with clarity and integrity. And often, that’s what builds the deepest trust.
Nicholas Robb
Uk Design Agency, Design Hero
Revitalizing Core Values Transforms Company Culture
I want to share how our company values stopped being just a decoration on the wall and actually helped us get through one of our hardest transitions as a team.
First, here’s how we turned our neglected company values into something we could actually use in a crisis. Back when we were just starting out and running on a shoestring budget, three people left in quick succession. For a team as small as ours, it was a huge blow. Looking back, I realized we’d let our core values fade into the background. Sure, we had a set of values and a mission statement, but nobody really lived them out in their daily work.
Instead of trying to quickly fill those empty roles, I gathered our remaining team together and was fully transparent about what was going on. The stress, the turnover, and the realization that our core values had to become how we actually worked. With help from everyone (and some encouragement from an executive coach), we rewrote our values together. We didn’t do it in a formal boardroom setting, but instead in Slack messages, Zoom calls, and brainstorming sessions, and we made sure everyone was involved.
We decided to really focus on getting everyone meaningfully involved and committing to everyday excellence. We brought those ideas to life with simple, regular habits, like quick morning meetings, weekly demo days, and team-led onboarding for new hires. This wasn’t just feel-good stuff. Our internal trust increased, our teamwork improved, and a practical bonus was that client projects moved 25% faster through review because communication between teams improved.
Now we work our values into our everyday feedback system. Every quarter, our reviews are tied directly to our values, not just performance numbers. If “excellence” is on the list, we highlight a specific example, like when someone got a website to load a half-second faster after a late-night fix, instead of just saying “nice job.”
By keeping reviews, daily standups, and all-hands meetings focused on our core values, we saw a huge spike in team engagement, more people stayed with the company, and we managed to retain our top talent. This aligns with what Gallup has found, which is that when people get regular, relevant feedback (especially when it’s connected to company values), engagement increases almost 4x. For us, it transformed our team environment. Our values aren’t just corporate talk. They’re real, day-to-day guideposts for handling tough moments.
Steve Morris
Founder & CEO, NEWMEDIA.COM
Authentic Expertise Overcomes Client Pressure
Our core value of “Authentic Expertise Over Convenient Solutions” guided us through a major client challenge that could have compromised our reputation. This principle helped us maintain integrity while finding a better path forward during a difficult recruiting situation.
A major manufacturing client pressured us to present candidates who didn’t meet their technical requirements because they needed someone hired immediately for a critical supply chain director role. The easy solution would have been submitting borderline candidates to collect our fee, but our founding value of genuine industry expertise meant only recommending professionals who could truly succeed.
This value guided my decision to be completely transparent with the client about why rushing the search would likely result in a failed placement within six months. Instead of compromising, I leveraged my ASCM Professional Membership and supply chain background to help them restructure the role requirements and timeline to attract genuinely qualified candidates.
The short-term impact was uncomfortable — the client initially resisted our advice and considered other recruiting firms who promised faster results. However, our commitment to authentic expertise ultimately strengthened the relationship when we successfully placed a candidate who exceeded their expectations and remained with the company for over two years.
This experience reinforced that our values weren’t just marketing language but operational principles that differentiate us from competitors willing to compromise quality for quick revenue. Clients learned to trust our judgment because we prioritize their long-term success over immediate transaction completion.
Values-driven decisions create long-term competitive advantages. When you maintain integrity during challenging situations, you build reputation and trust that generates sustainable business growth rather than short-term profits.
Friddy Hoegener
Co-Founder | Head of Recruiting, SCOPE Recruiting
Transparency Builds Trust in Client Relations
When we encountered a problem with a client launch running behind schedule, it would have been easy to try to gloss over the details or hope it would resolve itself. However, integrity and transparency are at the heart of how we operate, so I picked up the phone and explained exactly what had happened, what we were doing to fix it, and made sure to keep the client updated every step of the way. That kind of honest communication didn’t just salvage the project — it actually built more trust between us. It was a real reminder that leading with our values isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s what keeps our relationships (and reputation) strong. That experience made me even more committed to approaching situations with honesty and reliability, no matter how challenging the circumstances.
Kristin Marquet
Founder & Creative Director, Marquet Media
Brutal Honesty Accelerates SEO Recovery
One of our core values is brutal transparency with clients and within our team. This commitment was put to the test when Just Bathrooms faced a major dip in visibility after a CMS migration that wasn’t handled by us but landed on our plate to fix. Instead of spinning the situation or pointing fingers, we owned the problem, laid out a real recovery timeline, and communicated progress weekly in plain language, with no jargon or sugarcoating. It paid off: we rebuilt their SEO foundation, recovered rankings within 90 days, and boosted organic traffic by 204%.
In a world where agencies often hide behind dashboards and vague reports, our value of straight talk helped preserve trust and accelerate action. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, client-facing businesses with clear communication cultures bounce back faster from downturns. We don’t just sell performance; we build it on honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Matthew Goulart
Founder, Ignite Digital
Developer-First Transparency Turns Crisis into Advantage
Developer-first transparency was our linchpin during our biggest crisis. Three years ago, 40% of our enterprise users were affected by a security hole in our PDF processing library. It would have been easier to quietly issue a patch and hope that no one noticed. Instead, we rapidly published an extensive security advisory about our communication regarding the incident, with details on who the affected customers were and our plan for remediating it.
The response was unexpected. Not only did we not lose customers, but we also gained their trust. A Fortune 500 customer said they had never seen a supplier with such transparency and professionalism when it came to security. This openness turned a near-disaster into a competitive advantage — security-aware customers were choosing us because we had handled that incident in this way.
What I learned from this experience is that values are not like ornaments on a Christmas tree; they act as decision-making toolkits when the going gets tough. Customers notice and remember when you stick by your principles, no matter how awkward it might sometimes feel. Earn your reputation by how you respond to adversity, not by how you avoid it.
Cameron Rimington
Founder & CEO, Iron Software
Integrity Guides Ethical Decision-Making in Law
A few years ago, my firm faced a difficult situation where a potential client wanted us to take on a high-profile case involving significant media attention. The legal merits were questionable, and while it presented an opportunity for exposure and potential revenue, it also raised serious ethical concerns. Our core value of integrity guided our response. We declined the case, even though it meant turning down a lucrative opportunity. We believed that compromising on ethics for short-term gains would erode the trust we work so hard to build with every client.
This decision ended up strengthening our internal culture and external reputation. It reminded the team that we stand for more than just case outcomes; we stand for doing what’s right, even when no one’s watching. Ironically, saying no to that case led to several referrals from peers who respected our stance. For us, values aren’t just statements on a wall; they’re decision-making tools. They’ve helped us navigate gray areas with confidence, and that consistency is something clients and colleagues come to rely on.
Ed Hones
Attorney at Law, Hones Law Employment Lawyers PLLC
Values-Based Leadership Navigates Rapid Growth
Not too long ago, we launched two new clinics in just half a year. It looked like a major success from the outside. However, behind the scenes, things got messy…fast. We were short on staff, the systems were under pressure, and our providers were running on fumes. The quick fix would have been to push harder, pile on more work, and hope everyone could keep pace.
Instead, I went back to our core values: compassion, resilience, and trust. We paused. We listened. We let teams speak freely about burnout. We restructured timelines, pulled in support, and chose long-term integrity over short-term speed.
I’ve learned that values don’t mean much until they cost you something. That stretch taught me more about leadership than any win ever has.
Colin Potts
Chief Operating Officer, Regenerative Orthopedics & Sports Medicine
Trust Through Communication Resolves Platform Issues
One problem we had was that a big update to the platform generated problems for some of our agency partners that we didn’t expect. Some listings lost visibility for a short time, which was understandable because it was frustrating. It would have been easy to go into damage-control mode and move rapidly without being completely honest. But one of our basic values is that trust comes from talking to each other, so we did that, even though it required having some tough conversations.
We got out to every partner who was affected and told them what went wrong. We also gave them specific timetables and personal help. We had daily alignment conversations inside the company to make sure that the product and support teams were working together. We didn’t hurry out a repair; instead, we developed a values-based approach that focused on consistency and clarity.
What happened? We earned back trust and even strengthened several long-term connections. We ended up retaining 95% of the accounts that were affected. That event made me understand that values aren’t just words on a page; they’re what you use to define yourself when things become rough.
Gianluca Ferruggia
General Manager, DesignRush
Community Values Drive Collective Problem-Solving
Within all of my organizations, we pride ourselves on community and collective healing. As a foundation executive and community curator, the biggest challenge I face — as well as my organizations — is networking impoverishment.
Through curated spaces and programs, I lean heavily on our values to guide how we engage with one another. We intentionally create opportunities for people to come together, connect, and problem-solve collectively. It’s not just about discussion; it’s about applied action that creates greater, more powerful, and personal impact on everyone involved.
Our values of community and collective healing remind us that solutions don’t happen in isolation — they happen when people come together with a shared purpose. These values continue to guide the way we design every initiative and overcome challenges, big or small.
A.D. Marshall
Founder| Executive Director| Chairwoman, 3ive Society Women’s Club
Values Guide Crisis Response in Ukraine
Yes, our company has certainly faced significant challenges — most notably through our operations in Ukraine during the war. The realities on the ground were drastically different from our work in the European Union or the United States. We had to navigate extreme uncertainty, safety risks, and disrupted communications while continuing to support our clients and team members.
However, it was precisely during this period that our core values — resilience, responsibility, and proactive leadership — truly guided us. Rather than retreating, we strengthened our crisis management direction and launched new strategic initiatives.
One of the most meaningful outcomes was the development of our “Lobby Club” — a powerful network of entrepreneurs, civic leaders, and influencers who came together to exchange solutions, support each other, and advocate effectively even under pressure.
In the end, this difficult period didn’t weaken us — it pushed us to grow stronger and to build a more values-driven, impact-focused community. I believe this experience is not only relevant but also inspiring for others navigating uncertain environments.
SERHII KOLISNYK
Partner, Attorney-at-Law, Phd in Law, Managing Partner of LOBBY CLUB
