Brought to you by Jeff Thoren, DVM, ACC  

“It puzzles me how little attention we give to developing this thing called values in our organizations.  We expend a lot of energy ‘doing’ things - building and executing programs, raising money, and developing systems and structures.  Yet, we spend so little time developing the heart and soul of our organizations.”  - J. David Schmidt

Every company or organization builds its reputation based on a set of values.  This is why leaders must become particularly interested in their role as value shapers.

Great leaders understand that it is their capacity to shape values and educate through vivid, living, personal example that ultimately directs the course of their business. The way people think about customers and co-workers, the way they behave, and their impressions of right and wrong are all influenced by watching the way their leaders live out the organization’s values.

Here’s this month’s feature ...

Leaders as Value Shapers
by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg

From "Cool Tools" at www.freibergs.com

Highlights from the article:

• If you want to identify the true character and personality of an organization, skip the values statement that hangs on the wall and observe the way people act in the mundane, ad hoc, isolated events of every day.  Then examine the company’s systems, strategy, structure, and policies.  These are the living expression of the organization’s underlying values.
    

• Values are the emotional rules that govern people’s attitudes and behaviors.  They establish boundaries that influence how an organization fulfills its mission.  Values are the fundamental basis for the choices we make.
    

• What is the power of a strong value system in a team or organization?  Strong values:

1. Build trust and confidence.  Where a strong set of values exist, leaders have more confidence to let go of power and authority.

2. Foster accountability.  A strong values system creates boundaries.  When the boundaries are clear employees have more freedom and authority to act.  People are more willing to be accountable when you reduce the uncertainty that comes with ill-defined boundaries.

3. Establish a unified front.  Strong values concentrate the efforts of the team.  When people are drawn together by a common set of beliefs something powerful happens.  The values holding a team together suddenly become more important than the agenda or special interests of any one individual.

4. Provide guidance in times of crisis.  Strong values serve as a moral compass to make the right decisions when faced with difficult challenges.

5. Create competitive advantage.  There’s a strong sense of sincerity and authenticity in firms with clearly-defined values.  And customers and clients want to do business with organizations they can count on.

• Leadership functions on the basis of trust and credibility.  That’s why leaders must become consciously aware of closing the gap between their espoused values and the values that they actually practice.  Leaders who live their values inspire a tremendous sense of commitment and loyalty in others.  As a result they expand their influence and their ability to affect change.

  
For the full text article, go to ...
http://www.freibergs.com/cooltools/articles-leaders-shapers.html
  

Your Walk is What Talks

What values are really guiding you?  When other people evaluate whether or not we are faithful to the values we profess, what criteria do they use?  The following list of questions is certainly not comprehensive, but use it to explore how much of a disconnect exists between what you say and what you actually do.

• How do you spend your time?  If you want to know what someone values watch the way he or she allocates time.  We spend time on those things that are most important to us.  If you really want to put yourself to the test make a list of the top 5-6 values driving your organization.  Then look at your day timer or calendar program and do a content analysis of the way you allocated your time over the last 18 months.  What does your schedule say to others about what you value?
    

• How do you spend your money?  Take out your checkbook and audit your expenditures.  Thoroughly examine the last budget you prepared.  Is it consistent with what you value?  The way we spend money says a lot about our priorities.  If you say the key to your future lies in developing your people, what percentage of gross revenues do you spend on training?
    

• How do you react to critical incidents?  Whether it’s a customer complaint or commendation, how you handle the event sends a message to the people in your organization.  When a customer asks your team to go above and beyond the call of duty how do you respond?  When one of your people does something heroic do you celebrate and publicize their actions?
    

• What do you reward and punish?  Do you give out generic employee of the month awards or do your awards specifically reinforce the values that are driving your business?  Do your incentives promote internal competition or cooperation?  When one of your people takes an intelligent risk with the intent to benefit the company and fails do you reward or punish their effort?  When someone who reports to you musters the courage to give you constructive feedback how do you respond?
    

• What questions do you ask?  Do the questions you ask demonstrate your concern for your employees?  Do your questions primarily encourage people in your organization to focus on the customer or on the numbers?  Your questions reveal a lot about the dominant themes that occupy your mind.
    

• What things do you measure?  If you believe your people are your major point of differentiation, are you as rigorous about measuring their satisfaction as you are about measuring their productivity or financial results?  If you believe that a significant part of leadership is serving your internal customers, are those customers given an opportunity to evaluate the quality of the services you provide?

Consider our Teams that Talk™ Coaching for Teams approach to help you harness the power of shared values.

  
Next Month

What’s the secret of enduringly successful people?  They’ve found a cause that they’re wholeheartedly committed to. They serve the cause, and the cause also serves them.  It recruits them, and they are lifted up by its power.  When that happens to you, a bigger, more engaging version of “you” shows up.

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