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Company Values That Guide Decisions: Scenario Prompt

Surface your real company values by testing them against hard situations, so you end up with principles that actually guide calls, not words on a wall.

Free prompt pack · copy-paste ready · built by the BrainVaultAI team

Most company values are aspirational noise. 'Integrity. Excellence. Innovation.' Every company has them. None of them help anyone make a hard call at 11pm. This prompt works backwards. You describe real situations where values matter, a difficult hire decision, a client conflict, a product tradeoff, and Claude extracts the actual principles behind how you'd handle them. Use it when founding or relaunching a company, before your first culture hire, or when your existing values aren't guiding behavior. Run both prompts in sequence. Prompt 1 extracts values from scenarios. Prompt 2 sharpens each value into something actionable.

Prompt 1: Extract Values from Real Scenarios
Help me identify my company's real values by analyzing how I'd handle difficult situations. I'll describe five scenarios. For each one, tell me what value or principle is implied by the decision I'd make. Scenario 1, A-player candidate, wrong culture fit: We have a top-performing candidate who would ship fast but tends to work around people rather than with them. Do we hire?
[YOUR ANSWER: yes/no and why] Scenario 2, Good client, bad fit: A client is paying well but their requests are consistently outside our scope and draining the team. Do we fire them?
[YOUR ANSWER] Scenario 3, Speed vs. quality: We can ship a feature in two weeks with known edge-case bugs, or five weeks clean. We promised the client in three weeks.
[YOUR ANSWER] Scenario 4, Public mistake: An employee makes a public error that embarrasses the company. Do we address it publicly or quietly fix it?
[YOUR ANSWER] Scenario 5, Short-term revenue vs. long-term trust: A partnership deal would bring $200K but requires us to recommend a product we think is mediocre. Do we take it?
[YOUR ANSWER] After analyzing all five: list the 4-6 values or principles these decisions reveal. Name each one. Write one sentence on what it means in practice.
Prompt 2: Sharpen Values into Actionable Statements
Below are the draft company values extracted from real scenarios. Rewrite each one so it:
1. Is specific enough to guide a real decision
2. Has a clear 'this means we do X and don't do Y' implication
3. Is memorable, under 8 words for the value name
4. Passes the test: could a new employee use this to make a call when no one is watching? Draft values:
[PASTE PROMPT 1 OUTPUT] For each value output:
- Value name (bold, under 8 words)
- One sentence definition
- One concrete example of what this looks like in practice
- One thing this value means we explicitly don't do If any draft values overlap or conflict, flag it and suggest a merge or resolution.

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