Old man's philosophy... Let's get real.

So imagine you're teaching your children the value of sharing or of being polite and they respond. 'All this philosophy is nice, but let's talk about reality'... But this IS reality you answer.

Whenever we learn new values which shape and influence our behaviour  it initially sounds philosophical, but not to the person teaching. To them it is a reality. It is part of their DNA and informs their thinking, behaviour and the systems they develop. 

Of course with children we can't work directly on the level of values. So instead we model the behaviour the values shape, thus training the values indirectly. This of course is slow and time-consuming and invariably meets with loads of resistance. But with adults, because our thinking is more developed, because we are more mature and subtle, we can work directly on the values themselves. 

It's subtle, but a much faster and more sustainable way of aligning [and changing] behaviour. 

That's why organisations and businesses, at a certain point in their development if they committed to sticking around, start taking their mission and vision seriously. But to the young and uninformed, it just sounds like old man's philosophy.