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Pathways and Pitfalls to Clarifying Organizational Values

 

Guest articles > Pathways and Pitfalls to Clarifying Organizational Values

 

by: Jim Clemmer

 

"If the 'Know Thyself' of the oracle were an easy thing, it would not be held to be a divine injunction." — Plutarch

Effectively using values to care for the context and provide focus to a team or organization has two major steps: 1) clarifying and prioritizing shared values; 2) living and behaving according to those aspirations. Both can be very difficult leadership acts.

Here are some ways to clarifying and prioritizing shared values:

  • If your management team hasn't developed an explicit set of core values, this is the place to start. Here's what you're after:
    • Three to four words or short phrases (five words or less) that you can use as "verbal pegs" to cluster or summarize many of the related values at the top of your values hierarchy.
    • Words or short phrases that are easy to understand and meaningful to your team and organization.
    • Broad understanding and ownership of the core values by everyone on your team or in your organization.

Your team's shared values should represent a blend of those principles from your past that you want to preserve and the beliefs that your team will need to share as you look to your preferred future. Looking at the past respects and builds on your organization's heritage, successes, and strengths. It helps to turn resistance to change into confidence and energy for facing the future. To look at future values, you're examining the underside of your team or organization's vision. To make the picture of your preferred future reality calls for a different set of priorities about what's really important.

Debating and developing your core values should follow the development of your shared vision. Values clarification can be a painful process. But it doesn't have to be long and drawn out. If you have a skilled facilitator lead you, it's common to have a rough version of your team's shared values words or short phrases within a few hours. That's because shared values aren't created they're uncovered or articulated.

  • Once your team has developed your core values, we've found the following exercise is a useful way to further debate, try them on for size, and start management teams into the most important part of values — living them. You can break into three groups or do this as a large group brainstorming and discussion exercise.
    • Here's the exercise using three groups (for the large group discussion, do these in the same way and order): 1) One group brainstorms a list of ways to visibly signal each value to the rest of the organization. These must be specific such as "meet with our distributors to get their ideas and feedback." Not motherhood generalities like "communicate better." 2) Another group discusses ways that the team and/or individuals on the team, often inadvertently violate each value. 3) The last group looks at ways the team and individuals on it can get feedback from others in the organization on how well they are living the values.
    • Now everyone gets back together to hear and discuss each group's perspectives. Action plans and next steps conclude the process.
  • Unless you're trying to build an old-fashioned command and control organization culture, you need wide debate, discussion, and ownership of a set of shared core values. This consensus building process can take a fair bit of time and energy. It's usually best combined with discussions of the organization's vision, and an outline of, or invitation to input to, the organization improvement plans and process. Some organizations have started with blank sheets of paper and invited the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people throughout their organization to articulate the organization's core values.

As you try to articulate your espoused or aspired values, don't allow yourself to fall into the trap of "we're not living this way now so it can't be a value." Like visioning, you're trying to describe where you want to be. Once you know what you want to become, then you can work on making these lived values.

 


Jim Clemmer’s practical leadership bookskeynote presentationsworkshops, and team retreats have helped hundreds of thousands of people worldwide improve personal, team, and organizational leadership. Visit his web site, http://jimclemmer.com/, for a huge selection of free practical resources including nearly 300 articles, dozens of video clips,  team assessmentsleadership newsletter,Improvement Points service, and popular leadership blog. Jim's five international bestselling books include The VIP Strategy, Firing on All CylindersPathways to PerformanceGrowing the Distance, and The Leader's Digest. His latest book is Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work.


Contributor: Jim Clemmer

Published here on: 14-Mar-10

Classification: Leadership, Business

Website: http://jimclemmer.com/

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Site Menu

| Home | Top | Quick Links | Settings |

Main sections: | Disciplines | Techniques | Principles | Explanations | Theories |

Other sections: | Blog! | Quotes | Guest articles | Analysis | Books | Help |

More pages: | Contact | Caveat | About | Students | Webmasters | Awards | Guestbook | Feedback | Sitemap | Changes |

Settings: | Computer layout | Mobile layout | Small font | Medium font | Large font | Translate |

 

 

Please help and share:

 

Quick links

Disciplines

* Argument
* Brand management
* Change Management
* Coaching
* Communication
* Counseling
* Game Design
* Human Resources
* Job-finding
* Leadership
* Marketing
* Politics
* Propaganda
* Rhetoric
* Negotiation
* Psychoanalysis
* Sales
* Sociology
* Storytelling
* Teaching
* Warfare
* Workplace design

Techniques

* Assertiveness
* Body language
* Change techniques
* Closing techniques
* Conversation
* Confidence tricks
* Conversion
* Creative techniques
* General techniques
* Happiness
* Hypnotism
* Interrogation
* Language
* Listening
* Negotiation tactics
* Objection handling
* Propaganda
* Problem-solving
* Public speaking
* Questioning
* Using repetition
* Resisting persuasion
* Self-development
* Sequential requests
* Storytelling
* Stress Management
* Tipping
* Using humor
* Willpower

Principles

+ Principles

Explanations

* Behaviors
* Beliefs
* Brain stuff
* Conditioning
* Coping Mechanisms
* Critical Theory
* Culture
* Decisions
* Emotions
* Evolution
* Gender
* Games
* Groups
* Habit
* Identity
* Learning
* Meaning
* Memory
* Motivation
* Models
* Needs
* Personality
* Power
* Preferences
* Research
* Relationships
* SIFT Model
* Social Research
* Stress
* Trust
* Values

Theories

* Alphabetic list
* Theory types

And

About
Guest Articles
Blog!
Books
Changes
Contact
Guestbook
Quotes
Students
Webmasters

 

| Home | Top | Menu | Quick Links |

© Changing Works 2002-
Massive Content — Maximum Speed