I recently adopted three adorable kittens. Within 24 hours it was apparent that one of them was ill and needed veterinary care. We got him to the vet promptly, and were told the little guy has a birth defect — a vascular ring anomaly. We had two choices. Have him euthanised, or take him to NC State’s vet school and spend serious money and time on the problem.
So we drove him to the vet school, where they confirmed the diagnosis and the price tag. This is where I was forced to ask a lot of questions about his probable quality of life, and what the success rate of these procedures would likely be. He was only 700 grams, and the runt of his litter already. They had to insert a feeding tube into his stomach, then go into his oesophagus laparoscopically and clean out all the impacted food. Then he would come home and we would be responsible for tube feeding him every three hours around the clock, until he was big enough for the second round of surgery to correct the defect. The good news was that the problem was entirely treatable. The bad news was the cost.
Now we have a little kitten who has to wear a t-shirt to keep his feeding tube up on his back, and to stop it snagging on things. This kitten — Fifi — has also mastered the art of ditching the shirt, so we have to track him down and cut new material for another one. We use netting to make them, and after he’s pulled them off a couple of times they’re too stretched to stay on at all. As of tonight he’s about 1,200 grams, so I anticipate he’ll be big enough for surgery soon.
This is about living your principles, and doing what’s right. It is mighty inconvenient having a kitten on the same feeding schedule as a newborn. But the other option was death. I’ll take the feeding schedule, and give him a chance at a long, healthy life.
What made this a decision rather than a reflex
It would be neater to say I simply did the right thing. That isn’t quite what happened, and the difference matters.
There was a real conversation at the vet school, and it wasn’t about money first. It was about whether the outcome was actually good — what his quality of life would be, what the success rate looked like for a cat that small. Had the answer been that we would spend a great deal and he would suffer through it and probably die anyway, the principled choice would have been the other one.
That’s the part people skip when they talk about values. Having principles doesn’t remove the need to think. It tells you which questions to ask, and then you still have to answer them honestly, with actual information, about the specific situation in front of you.
The reflex version — save every animal, never give up on anything — would have felt more virtuous and been worse.
The same thing happens in business, and it’s harder to see
Most values statements in business are written to be agreeable. We put the customer first. We do the right thing. We treat people like family. Nobody argues with them, which is a reliable sign they aren’t doing any work.
A principle only means something when it costs you something. You find out what yours are on the days when honouring them is expensive, inconvenient, or makes you look foolish:
- The client who pays well and treats your staff badly. Everyone says people come first, right up until the invoice is large enough.
- The mistake nobody would ever find out about. Telling the client costs you money and credibility today. Not telling them costs you nothing, until it does.
- The good employee in the wrong seat. Keeping them is kind to one person and unkind to the four people carrying the gap.
- The work you could take but shouldn’t. Revenue you’re capable of earning and not equipped to deliver well.
Each of those has an obvious answer in principle and a genuinely uncomfortable one in practice. That’s how you know they’re real principles rather than slogans.
How to tell whether yours are load-bearing
Reasonable test, and it doesn’t require a values workshop.
Think of the last decision that cost you money, a client, or a night’s sleep. What made it hard? Whatever you were unwilling to trade away in that moment is an actual principle. It may not be the one on your website.
Then the harder question: does anyone who works for you know what it is? Values that live only in the owner’s head get overridden constantly, not from disagreement but because nobody knew they were there. If your team can’t predict which way you’ll decide when money and principle pull in opposite directions, they’ll guess — and they’ll usually guess money, because that’s what most businesses teach them to expect.
The useful version is specific enough to act on. Not “we do the right thing,” but “we tell the client when we’ve made a mistake, even when they’d never find out, and I’d rather lose the account than not.” That’s a sentence someone can follow when you’re not in the room.
A note added years later: Fifi made it through the surgeries, and went on to live eleven wonderful years. He was the most obnoxious, loving, ornery cat — and we adored him and his enormous personality entirely.
Which isn’t the point of the story about principles. But it is the reason I’d make the same decision again.
