Inspired by the Coldplay Case: How to Close the Gap Between What You Say and What You Do

Reflection
Time Required: 20-30 minutes
What You'll Need: A quiet space, notebook or digital document, and an honest self-assessment

The Challenge

The gap between what we say we value and what we actually do is where organisational integrity lives or dies. This exercise helps you examine that gap with compassion and clarity.

Part One: The Reality Check (10 minutes)

Question 1: What do we actually value?

Look at your organization's last three months of decisions. Not the mission statement. Not the values poster. The actual decisions.

Write down:

• Where did we spend our money?
• Where did our senior leaders spend their time?
• What behaviours got rewarded (promotions, recognition, resources)?
• What behaviours got tolerated even when they shouldn't have been?
• What initiatives got funded versus what got delayed or cancelled?

Be brutally honest. This isn't about judgment. It's about clarity.

What patterns emerge? These patterns reveal your actual values, regardless of what's written on your website.

Part Two: The Possibility Question (10 minutes)

Question 2: What complex problem could we solve if we treated our values as fuel?

Think about the Coldplay example. They didn't just say they cared about the environment. They redesigned their entire touring infrastructure around that value.
Now consider your organisation:

•  What "wicked problem" keeps coming up in your strategic conversations?
• What issue affects your stakeholders (employees, customers, community) that you feel powerless to address?
• What would become possible if you approached this problem with the full weight of your organisational resources behind your stated values?

Write down one specific problem. Just one. Be concrete.

Part Three: The Honest Pathway (10 minutes)

Question 3: What would it take to make that real? 

This is where most reflection exercises fail. They stop at inspiration without moving to implementation.

For the problem you identified, map out:

Immediate Actions (This Week):

• What conversation needs to happen?
• Who needs to be in the room?
• What question needs to be asked that we've been avoiding?

Short-term Changes (This Quarter):

• What resource allocation would need to shift?
• What measurement or accountability system would need to change?
• What behaviour would we need to start rewarding that we currently ignore?

Structural Shifts (This Year):

• What policy or process would need to be redesigned?
• What capability or expertise would we need to build or acquire?
• What would we need to stop doing to make room for this priority?
  
  

Moving Forward

Leadership wisdom grows when we close the gap between aspiration and action. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But consistently, courageously, and with compassion for ourselves and others in the process.

The organisations that thrive in uncertainty aren't the ones with the best-sounding values. They're the ones who operationalise those values into every decision, every day.

Your next step: Schedule 30 minutes with your leadership team to share what emerged from this reflection. Start with vulnerability. Share what you discovered about the gap between stated and actual values in your own leadership first.