When you are moving fast, hiring like crazy, and juggling the day-to-day chaos of a startup, it’s easy to assume your company values are just…fine. Maybe they’re framed nicely in your onboarding. Maybe they’re on a Sharepoint somewhere. But if you asked five leaders to define one of them, would they all say the same thing? 

We didn’t think to ask that question until recently. And the answers surprised us. 

A Groggy Start in Madison 

Back in the spring of 2023, a scrappy team of us met to build the cultural blueprint for a company we had barely begun. My job was to lead the group through a session to define our values, what we wanted Hummingbird to stand for. We sat in a conference room, surrounded by sticky notes, dry-erase markers, and big ideas. We talked about the kind of company we wanted to build, how we wanted to treat each other, how we wanted to lead, and what would matter most when things got hard. At the end of that day, we had our values. They were strong, they felt right, and they became our foundation. 

Two Years and 360 New Colleagues Later… 

Fast forward to 2025. Hummingbird is now 360 people across 40+ states. That early brainstorm session? A distant memory. And yet, those original values still lived on our Sharepoint and in our processes.

So, we gathered our senior leaders in Denver and asked a different kind of question: “Do our values still hold up? And if they do, do we all agree on what they mean?” What followed was eye-opening. 

Everyone agreed the values themselves were still right. But when we asked leaders to define them, we got wildly different interpretations. 

“Lead with Respect” meant showing kindness to one leader and having tough conversations to another. 

“Embrace Growth” meant revenue targets to some and personal development to others. 

The takeaway? Our values were still solid but the shared understanding of what they meant had been lost. 

Clarity Over Creativity 

So, we hit pause. We stripped the fluff and we rewrote the definitions. Not in paragraphs or buzzwords, but in bullets. 

Now, “Lead with Respect” means three very specific things. Same with the rest. The goal? No interpretation required. Anyone reading them should know exactly what they mean and what is expected. 

If your values are meant to shape hiring, performance reviews, promotions, and team culture, then they need to be crystal clear. Vague values sound nice, but they do not scale. 

Values Should Evolve—But Never Lose Their Meaning 

One of the biggest lessons we have learned as a fast-growing startup is this: values are not one-and-done. The values you wrote when you were ten people may still be right when you are 360 but only if you check in on them. Do they still resonate? Is the language still working? Are your team members living them… or just skimming past them? 

It is worth the time to find out. 

Join a Team That Means What It Says 

At Hummingbird, we take our values seriously and we make sure they are clear enough for everyone to live them. If that sounds like your kind of company, we are hiring across the country. 

Check out our Careers page and come fly with us.