But people who know their values seem to create the most success.
Think of successful businessmen like cereal maker Dick Hubbard and Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall, whose "rules for life" are well understood by both staff and the wider public.
If you put colleagues on the spot and ask them to run down their values list, they will invariably hesitate before coming out with a spray of various socially desirable ones - honesty probably first - before stuttering to a halt and looking at you pleadingly for clues.
That's because we're all too busy building our careers to stop and think about the very beliefs that should be their underpinning, says career consultant Graeme Duhs, of Auckland's Right D&A.
"For 90 per cent of us, working out values is a new idea," he says.
"Many people are in jobs they don't enjoy.
"They have drifted along, being career drifters rather than career managers."
But it's important to know what values drive you, he says, so you can be proactive in managing the direction you want to take, making sure your values drive where you're going.
A values and career mismatch, he adds, leads to under-performance, frustration, fatigue and stress.
"We need to know our values because people will have five to six changes in their working life, and at least two of them will be involuntary," he says.
"People have to be ready for change."
But working out your values isn't a quick exercise, says Duhs and fellow consultant Peter Swanson.
It requires quiet time, reflection, and honest self-examination.
Says Duhs: "To know your values, you need to think through the important things that have influenced the way you think, act and behave."
Work, life balance and family - he has six children - top his list.
"Work values include achievement, integrity, organisation, leadership and independence."
And you also need to be aware that values need regular revision, says Swanson.
Major life events such as the arrival of a first child tend to change the content of a values list and each item's priority.
He advocates yearly revision. More than that is too much, he says: assessing what drives you is mentally challenging work.
"I don't think it's something you'd want to do weekly," he says. "You'd get tangled up thinking about them."
Swanson himself noticed his values change and rearrange with the arrival of his first child, a boy.
Being a parent, he says, "affects what I choose to buy, the work hours I want to do, whether I want to travel".
His top five are family, health, adventure, achievement and friends.
But be aware that there is sometimes a gap between espoused values and what you actually do, says Swanson.
You might have maintenance of good health high on your list, but a rare acquaintance with the gym.
Don't feel too guilty, he says: "Your actions tell you what you values are, but it's appropriate to have a desired state to work towards.
"Sometimes we have to work in elevating a value that will benefit us, like good health."
However, organisations have no such leeway, he says.
Much staff disillusionment arises from a perceived gap between the values employers practise and preach.
Example: a firm repeating the mantra that staff are its greatest asset but treating them inconsistently or laying them off at the first sign of recession.
"This causes quite a lot of tension, and it can be hard to work out," says Swanson.
American speaker Howard Figler, author of The Complete Job-Search Handbook, has a pithy way of putting it: "Values are the emotional salary of work, and some folks are drawing no wages at all."
Take the work values quiz
