LEADING THROUGH VALUES

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

1. Explain the ideology of culture

2. Summarize the need for values

3. Explain the consequences of having generic values

4. Identify how to determine if the association’s values are working

5. Describe how to use values to manage your team

The tasks below will be automatically checked off once you complete watching the video and taking the quiz.

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The Open Garden Model starts to be meaningful when strong Core Purpose and Core Values statements are able to connect everyone. The organization’s purpose and values should align the full-time employees, those who volunteer, and those who elect to join your organization because they believe in what the organization believes.

Emotional Attachment = Strongest Members

You will find your strongest member base in those who join because they’re moved by your purpose and values, not just because a nice package of benefits is involved. The latter is purely an economic decision, and because it’s not an emotional decision, you will not get the same amount of loyalty, participation and overall contribution from your members. The minute they think they can get a better deal somewhere else, those bargain shoppers will leave.

However, if one joins because they share the same values and big-picture purpose as the organization, they will most likely stay a member for as long as they believe the organization is committed to those ideals.

In addition, non-members will also find emotional alignment with the Core Ideology (Purpose + Values), and that in turn will result in more meaningful and longer-lasting relationships.

CULTURE

An organization needs to be able to answer the why, where and how of their culture.

A Core Purpose answers why the organization exists; a Vision answers where it wants to end up; Core Values are in place to answer how they will get there.

However, there’s more than one way to achieve the same outcome. The way one organization goes about this can be very different from another, and it can even change as the organization evolves.

Values shape and guide what you do day to day and how your team behaves with one another. If you say you value simplicity, then it becomes a guiding force for many decisions you make. That doesn’t mean simplicity is placed above all else, but it becomes an important value everyone knows, supports and can use as a measuring stick when making daily decisions on their own.

There are two parts in establishing the culture of any organization.

Click each tab to learn more.

Define the ideological components

Define the ideological components (Core Purpose and Core Values), which takes a process akin to soul searching. It’s the journey to understanding why the organization exists (Core Purpose) and how you should behave (Core Values) to support those conclusions in ways that are more philosophical than practical.

The answers form the core ideology of an organization, a set of convictions that should inspire and direct business strategies, managerial style, marketing campaigns, even the very products/services it designs and delivers to its customers.

The ideology guides what not to do just as much as what makes sense to do. Saying no to the wrong ideas is even more critical than saying yes to the right ones.

Prepare for implementation challenges

Once you have discovered and agreed upon the philosophical elements of Core Purpose and Core Values, you must prepare for the challenge of putting them into action. This is the operational component of the process, which never ends. Make no mistake; implementing these rather abstract ideas throughout your organization is a long and complicated process that must be done for the lifetime of the organization.

CORE VALUES

Core Values are the set of behaviors an organization agrees to hold itself up to while pursuing its Core Purpose. Core Values should be immutable, non-negotiable and as solid as the foundational layer of Core Purpose they are built upon.

Key Points for Discovering Your Values

Determine the behavior you demand from everyone, versus the behavior you absolutely will not tolerate from anyone.
Core Values should differentiate between organizations, rather than the obvious, more generic ones that do little to inspire or inform your team’s behavior.
If your values are generic, then they mean nothing. In fact, it’s worse than not having them at all because they will appear insincere and unoriginal, ultimately becoming a joke over time.

Click each tab to learn more about the process.

Core Values Discovery Team

Whoever is involved in your Core Values discovery sessions will ultimately have a hand in deciding how everyone within the organization behaves and the decisions they make on a daily basis. Choose your role models wisely, but keep in mind it’s sometimes the last ones you think of who contribute the most to the process. Diversity of thought and an open, supportive environment are critical in this exercise, as they ensure the results are multi-dimensional, useful and unique to your organization.

Implementing the Core Values

The value set the discovery team creates should be communicated at every meeting, project directive, team-building exercise and any other chance a leader has to remind his or her team to ensure they are woven into the very fabric of the organization.

An organization’s values are alive and working when they are second nature to its team members.

One should be able to walk around the workspace not as a leader but as an observer and hear people talking about their Values in any discussion. Whether it’s during a product planning meeting or a sales huddle, people should be talking about Purpose and Values, especially if they’re talking about decision-making.

If someone says, “Hey, we’ve got this project, but we’re not sure about this idea for it,” the conversation should always include, “Does it support our Core Purpose? Is it aligned with our Core Values?” Those concepts are the pulse of any organization, so if you spend a day running around the organization and don’t hear people talking about Purpose and Values, then you have more work to do.

Using Core Values to Determine Team Alignment

It’s difficult to change a person’s value system, and if they’re not capable of buying into the organization’s Core Values, then everyone inside and outside the organization will question the importance of and commitment to its values.

It may feel counter-intuitive, but instilling polarizing values is an effective way to ensure an association finds a committed staff and member base who are with them to the end. No organization is a great fit for everyone, and if leaders figure that out in the beginning, the organization will be much stronger as it pushes forward.

You should be willing to hire and fire based on Values. You should be willing to recruit and retain members based on your Purpose, but you can also use your Values to measure alignment between external appeal and internal ideals. When out of sync, you know your values are either not being lived inside the organization or they are simply not translating to those outside it.

Values-Productivity Chart

One way to gauge whether a person is a good cultural fit is by using a values-productivity chart.

Download the Open Garden Values-Productivity Chart so you can use it in your own organization!

Where many managers fail is with those in the bottom-right box. Leadership often overlooks or excuses workers who are high in productivity but low in values, because they are top producers. The problem is this group, more than any other, kills your culture by sending a message that the organization does not actually believe in its values. Rather, it prioritizes short-term productivity and profit over the way its people behave.

Watch the following video for a detailed explanation.

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Activities to apply this lesson’s concepts

Click each tab for an activity.

Reflect

Communicate

If your Core Values don’t form the heartbeat of your organization, you first need to make sure you’re communicating them clearly and regularly. Write your Core Values on the wall, include them in newsletters, put them on your website, ask team members to recite them as often as necessary (one-on-one reviews, in the halls, at team-building events, etc.).

Even once your Core Values have been discovered and sufficiently communicated inside the organization, don’t declare victory and then go sleep at the wheel. You need to keep going. For 30 seconds at the beginning of every meeting, you should read one of your Core Values. Make it clear by stating, “This is a core value.”

In the beginning, it’s going to feel very strange for people, but it will get easier and the weirdness will dissipate a little more each time a leader states one of the Core Values in the meeting.

During these staff meetings, highlight examples of Core Values being lived out by members of the team. Call out someone who lived a one that particular week. For instance, they might say, “Hey, Alicia, we really appreciate the fact that you ‘owned it’ when this particular customer called. You didn’t know how to answer their question, but rather than passing them off to somebody else, you stayed with them from the beginning of the problem to the finish line. Your actions were highly responsive, and because you owned it end-to-end, you ultimately solved their problem.”

It takes very little time and energy to recognize a team member following through on the organization’s values, and yet such a recognition motivates the whole team by reinforcing the importance of and gratitude for the organization’s commitment to values.

Encourage

Encourage Core Values at the peer-to-peer level. Leaders have to set the tone in any organization.

One way is to have tools available that encourage each value through Core Value cards. Take the time to create these “value postcards.” On the front of the card, use an interesting photograph or graphic that illustrates a particular Core Value as well as a written description of it. On the back of the card, leave space for a team member to write a note expressing their appreciation for another’s commitment to a specific Core Value. The exercise helps team members visualize organizational values, but it also offers a way for people to quickly and easily communicate or receive gratitude and encouragement without the necessity of a meeting or special event.

Additional Tools

Download the Open Garden Values-Productivity Chart so you can use it in your own organization! Save and download or print.

Download the Chart

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING

See if you understand the concepts by completing the quiz. Click Leading Through Values Quiz to begin.

Leading Through Values Quiz

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