The healthiest firms are not necessarily the ones that talk most about their values.

They are the ones where people live them, especially partners, supervisors and managers. They are the ones where the firm's decisions, rewards and ways of working support them.

The risk is that culture becomes values theatre.

A firm can talk about integrity, excellence, respect and communication. But people make judgements based on what happens in reality.

How they are treated, and how they see others treated.
Who gets promoted.
Who gets listened to.
What gets tolerated.
How sensitive conversations are handled.
Whether standards apply to everyone.
Whether promises match reality.

That is why clarity matters.

Not so much clarity about what the values are. Clarity about what is really shaping the experience of working in the firm.

For leaders, HR and risk professionals, one of the most useful questions is:

Do we understand the conditions that create our culture — both the good and the difficult?

Because culture is not what a firm says it is.

Actions speak louder than words.

And the gap between those two things is often where the slide begins.

That list of values I mentioned earlier?

They were Enron's.

If you wanted to understand the real culture of a law firm, what would you look at first?

For me, it wouldn't be the values statements.

Having spent years working with law firms, I'd probably start by asking:

"Tell me about the last difficult people issue you had."

Then I'd listen carefully to the answer.

How long was it known?
How was it resolved?
What was learned?

In my experience, you can learn more about a firm's culture from one real issue than from a hundred statements about its values.

What would you want to know?