Invisible Life of Org Values

When I face unusual situations in my work with organizations, I often think back to what happened at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel on November 26, 2008.

That night, when terrorists entered the hotel, there was almost no time to give instructions.

Communication systems stopped working. Smoke filled the building. Guests and employees were trapped in different areas, unsure of what was going on.

Amid the chaos, many Taj employees could have left, but they chose to stay.

Restaurant staff guided guests to safer exits, and employees who knew the hotel well led people through service corridors. Some went back into dangerous areas more than once to help others. Several employees lost their lives protecting guests.

Their response stood out not just because of a few courageous individuals, but also because so many put guests’ safety ahead of their own. They ignored job titles and responsibilities, often stepping outside their usual roles. No senior leader was there to guide them, and there was no crisis manual to follow.

They acted on something already inside them. Call it their connection to TATA, a sense of ownership, or pride.

Later, researchers looked at the Taj’s culture to see how this kind of behavior developed. The organization did not train people to be heroes. Instead, its hiring, development practices, recognition systems, and daily focus on guest care slowly shaped how employees saw their roles. Most importantly, there was a strong sense of Pride in Purpose. (The Ordinary Heroes of the Taj)

What happened that night showed the strength of a value system built up over years.

Most organizations have clear values. They talk about them during onboarding, include them in presentations, and display them in offices. These are called espoused values – what the organization says it believes in.

Espoused values are important. They give people language and direction, but on their own, they do not shape an organization.

People start to believe in a value only when they see it practiced again and again, until it becomes a habit in the organization.

An organization might say it values respect, but people notice how leaders react when a junior employee disagrees. It might talk about safety, but employees pay attention to how mistakes are handled. It might claim collaboration is important, but people see if individual achievements are recognized more than teamwork.

These daily choices shape the organization’s enacted values, the values people really experience.

This is where leadership matters most. Leaders set values by what they focus on, the questions they ask, the behaviors they reward, and the lines they will not cross.

People also notice what leaders allow. If behavior goes against stated values but is ignored, it sends a strong message. When this happens often, the written values lose their meaning.

For values to reach everyone in the organization, they need to be part of how things work every day. This means including them in hiring, performance talks, learning, engagement, and consequences. Recognition also matters, kept alive through stories and examples until they become part of the organization’s reality.

Over time, values that are practiced regularly become embedded values. They turn into shared expectations about what is right, what is not, and how people should act.

Edgar Schein described the deepest layer of organizational culture as basic underlying assumptions – beliefs that get deeply ingrained to be accepted as natural and mostly unquestioned. These operate beneath visible policies and practices, quietly shaping how people perceive situations, make judgments, and behave. (Paul Millerd)

At first, values are something people have to think about and remember to practice. With time and consistency, they become habits that show up naturally.

Eventually, when they are consistently experienced across the organization, they become shared assumptions, gradually entering the unconscious of the organization.They move beneath conscious awareness and shape how people make decisions, solve problems, and relate to one another. It becomes like an organizational instinct.

People stop asking, “What does our value statement say?” They just know what feels right.

This unconscious layer can make an organization stronger, but it can also cause problems. If fear, competition, or silence are accepted again and again, they become part of the culture too. The organization might talk about trust and teamwork, but act in ways that do the opposite.

That’s why organizations rarely become what they say they are. They become what they keep accepting as normal.

The way Taj employees responded was not created on the night of the attack. That night simply revealed what years of daily experience had built beneath the surface.

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Authored by Sanjay Gupta . Founder and Principal Consultant at Leaping Frog Consulting Services.