Values Integrity Index For Organisations Doing Work That Matters
Your Core Values Are On The Website. Are They In Your Operating System?
Most founders build teams on trust and shared mission. Then they scale and the gaps appear. Delivery slows. Decisions back up. The founder becomes the escalation point for problems the org should be solving itself.
That’s not a people problem, it’s a systems problem. Ethixly audits whether your accountability structure is built to hold as you grow – and shows you exactly where it isn’t.
Does This Sound Uncomfortably Familiar?
You’re growing, but execution is getting harder, not easier.
- Goals are set, but teams don’t seem to be pulling in the same direction.
- Someone always needs to chase someone else for updates.
- The founder keeps getting pulled into decisions that should have been handled below them.
- Underperformance is discussed, but rarely resolved cleanly.
- You have values. You believe in them. But you couldn’t easily prove – to a board, an investor, or yourself – that they’re actually driving how the organisation operates.
This isn’t a culture problem, it’s a structural one.
Ethixly audits whether your operating model is actually built around your values – or just claims to be.
What This Looks Like In Practice
Justice-focused non-profit | 15 people | Grant-funded
The organisation had been operating for years on an assumed set of values – never formally defined, never agreed on. Leadership made decisions they believed were mission-aligned and so did everyone else. The problem was they weren’t making the same decisions.
The diagnostic surfaced that no shared definition of accountability existed at any level – not in role expectations, not at board level, not in how performance was discussed.
What changed: Leadership could articulate a clear, agreed set of values for the first time. Hiring decisions became faster and more consistent. The board gained a structured framework for holding the organisation accountable to its mission – not just its outputs.
Digital rights organisation | 60 people | Grant-funded
A draft values set existed on paper. Management didn’t believe in it. Teams weren’t using it. The organisation was growing rapidly but communicating expectations informally – which meant inconsistently.
The diagnostic revealed the gap wasn’t a values problem. It was a translation problem: no one had defined what the values actually required of people in practice.
What changed: Once values were defined with specificity, management could communicate clear expectations and standards to their teams for the first time. Accountability conversations shifted from personal to structural.
What Does Ethixly Do?
Values Don’t Drive Behaviour. Systems Do.
Every organisation has values. Most are articulated clearly. Very few are structurally embedded.
The systems that actually shape behaviour – your KPIs, consequence architecture, leadership behaviours, decision rights, role expectations – usually develop informally during early growth. They work well enough at 10 people. At 50, the cracks start showing. At 100, they compound.
Ethixly audits the gap between what your organisation says it stands for and what your operating system is actually set up to do. We don’t assess culture or perception. We examine operating reality – one value at a time, starting with Accountability.
Built For Founders Who Are Scaling Past the Trust Layer
When your team was small, shared values and personal relationships kept things aligned. Now you’re bigger, alignment requires structure not just culture.
Ethixly is for you if:
- You’re a founder who keeps ending up in the middle of problems your team should be resolving themselves.
- You’re scaling headcount but your operating model is still built for a team half this size.
- You have KPIs, but you’d struggle to trace them cleanly from company level to individual roles.
- You’re mission-driven and that matters to you – which is exactly why the gap between your values and your systems bothers you.
- You’re approaching a funding round, a board review or a significant hire, and you want clarity before others scrutinise your structure for you.
→ See how the Accountability Diagnostic works for Start-ups | Scale-ups
Preparing for investment, due diligence or a board review?
Structural accountability gaps are easy to miss internally – and hard to explain externally. The Accountability Diagnostic produces a clear, documented picture of your operating model before others examine it for you.
A Client Example:
Justice-focused non-profit | 15 people | Grant-funded
A values-driven organisation with strong mission clarity but no formal accountability architecture. Role expectations were informal. The board had no structured mechanism for evaluating whether the organisation was delivering against its mission – only whether it was delivering against its grant outputs.
The Accountability Diagnostic identified misalignment between stated mission and how decisions were actually being made at leadership level. It produced a clear picture of where accountability existed structurally – and where it depended entirely on individuals.
Outcome: Clearer role definitions improved recruitment decisions. Leadership had a documented framework for mission-aligned decision-making. The board gained structured accountability that went beyond compliance reporting.
How It Works
Step 1: The Accountability Diagnostic
A structured, fixed-fee audit of whether accountability is embedded across your operating model. You receive a clear report, a visual KPI cascade map and a prioritised set of structural recommendations.
Start-ups (up to 50 people): £8,500 | Scale-ups (50–200 people): £15,000 | 3–6 weeks from kickoff.
Step 2: The Implementation Sprint
If the diagnostic surfaces gaps you want to close, we offer a focused 30–45 day sprint to redesign your KPI cascade, define role scorecards, clarify decision rights, and embed structured approaches for addressing missed targets.
You choose whether to implement internally or bring us in to do it with you.
Ready to test whether your operating model will hold?
The Accountability Diagnostic gives you a clear, documented picture of where accountability holds – and where it breaks.