When you’re doing organizational work like writing down your core values, it always pays to be specific and use examples.

“Do the right thing” sounds lofty and idealistic, but who judges the right thing?  Are you talking about morally?  Or are you talking about doing right by the company?  What if the right thing for the company is to break a law?  

“Don’t be evil” also sounds great, but what exactly does evil look like?  Building a performance review system that only benefits cronyism and individual contributors and fires team players might not be evil, but does that mean the system needs to go or can it stay?  

The dictionary gives example word usage when it defines the meaning of a word. Why shouldn’t we use examples when defining our values?