Table of Contents

Definition

Values that conform to the safest mediocre execution — the most copyable inputs across a category. Values every competitor in the category could state without changing a word.

Explanation

Test a values statement by substitution: swap in a competitor’s name and see if the sentence still works. “We’re committed to quality and hospitality” survives the swap intact at every operation in the category. That survival is the diagnostic — if the values statement is portable to any competitor without friction, it’s [Values Of Sameness], not a real value.

The failure isn’t that these values are false. Quality and hospitality probably are things the operator wants. The failure is that stating them does no differentiating work — they don’t tell a Guest, a candidate, or the operator’s own cast anything about what makes this operation different from the one next door.

[Values Of Sameness] is the opposite pole from [MDV]. MDV is meaningfully differentiated value the Guest actually experiences. Values Of Sameness is language that sounds like values but describes the entire category. An operator who wants real values has to write something a competitor would refuse to say, not something every competitor already says.