Two values were taking root. On the other two, the leaders agreed they were not.

Most values rollouts end at the launch. The principles are written, communicated, and assumed, and afterward no one can see which ones took root and which stayed on the slide. Putting the chief executive and a professor on stage to discuss the culture openly only works if the read in front of them names what is actually being lived, in the leaders' own words.

The audit was co-designed with the same professor who would later take the stage. Over four days, 26 senior leaders gave anonymous verbatim reflections on the platform, and experts cross-validated the analysis. Each principle was read two ways: how positive, ambivalent, or negative the reflections were, and how far the leaders agreed on the direction of the feedback. The second reading matters as much as the first. A principle can score badly and still be a problem the leaders see and agree on, which is exactly what makes it fixable.

The four principles did not move together. The two relational principles were taking root. Trust and psychological safety ran half positive, with around 70 percent of leaders agreeing it had improved but was not yet universal. Courage and openness showed forward momentum, agreed by around 60 percent, but inconsistent. The two execution principles were where the group fell short. Alignment behind a shared direction drew 70 percent negative reflections, and ownership the same. On both, around 80 percent of leaders agreed: alignment was a serious gap in daily practice, and weak ownership was a barrier the leaders knew about but had not fixed.

The pattern was the useful part. The values the group most needed for execution were the ones least lived, and that was exactly where agreement was loudest. At the conference, the chief executive and the professor put the read in front of the senior leaders and discussed the culture openly, principle by principle. The shared diagnosis the leaders already held became the basis of the conversation, instead of a set of slides no one could challenge.