What's in a value?

I recently ran a values exercise with a team of engineers in 1-1s. Each had to select three sticky-notes from a predefined set of values. Every single one of them chose Cooperation.

When we asked what cooperation meant, I got five completely different answers:

• Togetherness, presence, spending time as a team
• Getting along, being low-friction
• Building process that maximises output
• Effective collaboration, pair programming excellence
• Making the most of the collective's ideas, primarily through debate

It struck me how easily shared language masks divergent intent. We nod along to the same words, but if you scratch just beneath the surface, you'll find wildly different mental models. "Cooperation" can mean harmony or heat. Stillness or speed. Process or presence.

There's something dangerous in the assumption of alignment. And something powerful in making the implicit explicit.

Maybe the work of a team isn't just to agree on values—but to understand the friction inside them. To surface the tensions, to name the differences, to build shared understanding not just of what we value, but why and how.

Because values aren't just words on sticky notes. They're living, breathing things that shape how we work together. And like any living thing, they contain multitudes. The friction isn't a bug—it's a feature. It's where the real work of building a team begins.