Hi there, welcome to The Une. This time, we look at three places where the Value Compass can help close the gap between intention and reality: how a business is built, how an organisation behaves, and how a brand shows up.

But before we do: you had a nice question for us

We've been receiving requests not only from organisations, but also from brand strategists, HR leaders, business coaches and other professionals asking how they can apply Value Design in their own work, and whether they can participate in a workshop.

Of course, we'd love to.
The more we bring values into practice, the better.

We're planning a Value Design Workshop for professionals shortly after the summer.
If you're interested, send us a message at hello@une.eco.

Back to the gap
In our previous newsletters, we explored the struggle many organisations face between what they say they care about and what they actually bring into practice. The gap between values and behaviour is a well-researched challenge, both for organisations and for the people within them.

Despite the enormous effort invested in saying the right things.

On websites. Social media. Annual reports. Advertisements. In the values printed on office walls. In the purpose statement.

But in daily decisions, budget meetings, supply chain choices and performance reviews, the meaning of those words often disappears. Lost in the gap between what is intended and what is actually being done.

Rather than dwelling on the problem, we want to talk about solutions.
How the Value Compass can help close these gaps by connecting values to value creation in a structural way. And how it can be applied across business, behaviour and brand.

Values in action.

Business
Without a clear, shared logic for what value the organisation is here to create — and for whom, and under what conditions — business development risks becoming reactive.

Which new markets, new products, and new partnerships do we choose? And why?

These choices are often assessed on commercial logic alone, but including the social and ecological value principles does not only paint a more complete (and honest) picture of reality, it also offers new opportunities.

Together they act as filters for how revenue is generated, which customers are served, which partners are chosen. The compass doesn't just help you spot new possibilities for growth, it also makes explicit which choices erode one dimension to serve another. So you can do something about it.

It gives criteria for how the business is being built and prevents value drift when businesses change. The compass travels with the organisation into every new context, asking whether a new activity creates the value we intend to create, across all three dimensions.

It helps answer the question: is this direction still aligned with how we intend to create value as an organisation?

In practice, that means applying the compass to the choices that shape the business itself. Not as a separate exercise, but as part of how opportunities are pursued, propositions are developed and partnerships are formed.

Value Compass Applications — Business

Pursuit 
The opportunities and innovations the compass opens up that increase the value you create in distinctive ways.

Partnerships
The organisations and relationships it requires, choses because they align and compound value creation.

Propositions
The services and products that offer a specific transformation, named precisely, directed at the person who needs it.

Together, they turn values from something the organisation believes into something the business actively builds.

Behaviour
Give people a clear intent, values and a common language to engage in a shared reality and they will play jazz. Assuming they have the skills to play an instrument, it’s all they need to communicate, participate, respond and evolve.

Organisations are no different.

Research shows knowing what is expected is the single most important driver of employee engagement. When people don't know what it is, they disengage. The system doesn't give them direction they can act on. It’s purpose and values live in ppt slides and on wall posters, not in the daily decisions.

The Value Compass brings it right there where it is needed, by informing three core expressions of culture.

Value Compass Applications — Behaviour

Rituals
The living practice of the value compass: how the principles show up as recurring practice. Live habits, not routines.

Register
The vocabulary and tone each principle produces. What people say and how it sounds when the principle is active.

Relics
The proof objects. Specific examples, decisions, artefacts, and moments that demonstrate each principle governed something real.

Together, they make values visible in everyday life. Not as aspirations, but as patterns people can recognise, participate in and strengthen over time. Because culture is not what an organisation says. It is what people repeatedly do.

Brand
When values shape both how the business is built and how people behave, something else happens. The story the organisation tells becomes more attractive and trustworthy.

Greenwashing, purpose-washing, all kinds of washing.
We all know the examples of brands being called out for hypocrisy, inconsistency and lack of transparency.

Authentic communication and ethical consistency are essential for maintaining trustworthiness. Misalignment between a brand's messaging and its actual practices erodes trust with both customers and employees.

But when the value logic is embedded in how the business is built and how the organisation behaves, the brand becomes an expression of what is genuinely true. It is the difference between a brand that communicates purpose and an organisation that is purpose.

When the Value Compass guides brand design, the brand is not just internally and externally aligned, it is coherent. And that resonates with everyone that comes into contact with the brand.

Value Compass Applications — Brand

Stories
The transformation narrative: what changes in the world when the brand operates at its best, and what it means to belong to the brand that makes that change.

Senses
The consistent sensory world the brand inhabits: how it feels, sounds, looks, and touches across every encounter.

Signals
The aesthetic marks that show the compass is operating — specific choices in material, space, language, or behaviour that communicate the brand's values.

Together, they ensure the brand is not a layer applied to the organisation, but an expression of it.
The brands does not invent meaning. It reveals it.

Three domains, one logic
Today we touched on each of them, introducing some of the ways the Value Compass can be applied across business, behaviour and brand.

Three domains. One logic.

Because when value creation, behaviour and communication all follow the same compass, the gap between intention and reality starts to close.

In the coming weeks we'll dive deeper into each area and share canvases that help bring Value Design into practice. So values can live in real decisions, relationships and experiences. Not just on paper.

Work with us
Interested in building an organisation that moves as one? We're running Value Design workshops this summer and offer custom programs whether you're starting, scaling or shifting.

👋 hello@une.eco

Move as one. For the benefit of all. — Laurens & Jorn