With all due respect, you can improve your company’s core values.

As part of a series on interesting core value words for business, I showcase one that is often overlooked: respect.

On the face of it, ‘respect’ is the flip-side of ‘cheeky’ or ‘irreverent’.

It can imply courtesy and politeness. A deference. A knowing of one’s place.

It can, for example, describe the characteristics demonstrated by a subordinate, or someone who considers themselves to be subordinate.

To illustrate this, some people dress up in a suit when going to visit their bank manager – or a crematorium – ‘as a sign of respect’.

But respect can be much more authentic, powerful and meaningful than this.

It is not a blunt instrument. Holding the respect banner is a conscious choice to demonstrate the importance you place on someone else’s position in the world. Or their point of view.

You can only truly respect something – or someone – you understand.

Inside a respectful business, for example, you will find inclusion, an emphasis on good dialogue between the boardroom and the office. You should also be able to detect respect when you look at the communication with suppliers and customers.

This is the very least you should expect – and there’s an argument for saying that this kind of respect, this sense of fairness, should come as standard.

(Out of interest, 15 of the London FTSE companies – according to my research – have chosen respect as a core value word.)

It’s at a deeper level that respect kicks in as a major value.

For example, respecting that someone in your workforce does not share your point of view about something fundamental. Respecting that people who don’t have a lot of money make choices that seem, to you, alien. Or respecting that some colleagues don’t feel comfortable sharing their feelings in front of others.

Respect can be extremely active, not simply a response.

Volvo’s (abandoned because it was over-ambitious) ambition to not be responsible for killing people, either inside or outside a new Volvo, was a demonstration of respect for human life.

Respect can be vanilla and ho-hum out of context. But when you make it mean something by articulating your definition of it, it emerges as a very powerful value.

And, like all good ones, a difficult value to live up to.