Before Pluto arrived, we had a plan.
We’d talked about it. Agreed it. Practically laminated it.
No dog on the sofa.
No feeding from the table.
Calm, consistent training from day one.
We were going to be *those* puppy parents. Boundaried. Serene. Probably featured in a training manual.
That was the vision statement.
Would you like to know our actual, lived values, roughly three weeks in?
Pluto was on the sofa. Obviously. In fact, Pluto had a preferred cushion.
He got a treat for sitting, for nearly sitting, and for thinking about sitting.
And jumping up? We said “down” in our firm voices… while laughing. So as far as Pluto was concerned, jumping up was a crowd-pleaser. Do it again, but bigger.
Here’s the reality:
Pluto had no idea what we intended. He never read our vision statement.
He only knew what got rewarded and what got tolerated.
And that, right there, was becoming our actual culture. Not the one we agreed before he arrived. The one we were building with our real behaviour in real moments.
Then came the mirror moment.
We had a vision of the dog we wanted. Our behaviour was busy training a completely different one.
So we changed the behaviour. Ours, not his. We got clear on what actually got rewarded, consistent on what genuinely wasn’t tolerated, and – turns out – Pluto is a remarkably fast learner when the humans stop sending mixed messages.
He’s now, and I say this with only slight bias, a proper good boy.
(The sofa? We took a proper look at that rule and decided it was never really our value in the first place. He stays. Choose your values on purpose – don’t just inherit them from a puppy manual.)
Have a think about your organisation.
Most companies have values. Words on walls, words on websites. Collaboration. Respect. Excellence. (All in a lovely font.)
But your people, like my puppy, don’t experience the words. They experience the moments.
So if the brilliant-but-rude high performer never gets challenged, then “respect” isn’t your value. Tolerating rudeness from people who hit their numbers is.
If the person who stays visibly late gets the praise, then “work-life balance” isn’t your value. Performative exhaustion is.
If someone challenges an idea in a meeting and gets slapped down, then “speak up culture” isn’t your value. Silence is. And your team will learn it faster than Pluto learned where the treat drawer is.
Your culture isn’t what you wrote in the away day.
It’s what gets rewarded, what gets tolerated, and what gets quietly ignored when it’s inconvenient to deal with.
Every single day, in every team, leaders are training behaviours. The only question is whether you’re training the ones you meant to.
So here’s this week’s look in the leadership mirror:
What’s one behaviour you’re currently rewarding – or tolerating – that you would never, ever put on the values poster?
Because that, whether you like it or not, is one of your real core values.
Me? I’m off for a cuddle on the sofa with Pluto.
On purpose.
Rock on,
Jo
P.S. If your team’s real values and your wall’s values have drifted apart, that’s not a poster problem. That’s a leadership behaviour problem