I've had a question sent in to me with a request to answer it in the blog. Here's the question first:
"I work for a company that has a great list of values printed and nicely framed on the wall, but that's as far as it goes. It's a poster, not really how the company operates. Why does this happen with so many companies and what can I do about it as a single employee?"
Thank you for submiting this very interesting area of exploration. It also just happens to be an area I'm very passionate about and sometimes get up on my soapbox for. I'll hold back from ranting, I promise.
This situation is what I call "Corporate Poetry" where the well-intentioned values simply become art on the walls but are not being demonstrated.
The key thing to remember is that in most cases the values were devised and promoted with the best of intentions to help guide the development of the organisation's culture.
Things that could go wrong include (but are not limited to):
- There was no end-to-end stratgy about how the values would work within the culture and how to integrate them throughout business process.
- The values are dictating to the employees how to behave, whereas it may be better to recruit staff who have the right values to achieve the organisation's needs.
- Values are just words unless we also discuss the behaviours which need to be demonstrated. Words won't change the culture, behaviours will.
- There may not be managers confident enough in talking about values as part of the ongoing "coaching for performance" conversation. Instead, they sometimes get rolled out when it's "performance management" which is the opposite of best practice.
- Possibly the values were put up just to create the veneer of caring about these behaviours. If that's the case, many things could go wrong.
I could go on for some time listing issues here, and in some part that's helpful to identify root causes to the current situation. However, I'd like to offer the proposition that the focus could now be on the behaviours that are desired and to see what you can do to inspire the positive behaviours to be consistently demonstrated by yourself first. Then through role modelling, you may be able to inspire others.
Depending on your role and what rights you have in that role, you could also approach the appropriate stakeholders to discuss your concerns and see what role you could play in supporting the organisation to make a change if it is interested in making the change at all.
I don't have enough information from you to give more specific tips, so y ou may also want to consider speaking with a coach directly, or consult a trusted mentor or someone else you think may be able to immediately support you in considering forward moving options.
Thanks again for writing in!
Coaching Exercises
1. Does you company have published values? Where would you find them? Who knows about them?
2. How would you describe how well the values are integrated throughout the organisation? How do the interact with business process? How well do they support the interaction between people including colleagues and customers?
3. When you consider the values, what behaviours would be required to be consistently demonstrated to truly achieve those values? How well do you demonstrate them?
4. What could be improved? Be specific and think on a number of different levels. Try to be solution-focused versus just highlighting what's not working. If you see obstacles and problems associated with values, challenge yourself to see new positive approaches to support the development of a values-based environment.
5. As a result of these questions and your considered responses to them, what are you committing to?
As always, if you need any further personal support in response to any of these coaching exercises, please consider using the askacoach.com service.
All the best,
Noel
Noel Posus - Master Coach
www.askacoach.com Join our newsletter by clicking here.
Noel Posus is on the Board of Directors and is the Head of Marketing - Asia Pacific for The-ECI - www.europeancoachinginstitute.org
Check out The Inaugural ECI Australasian Coaching Conference - The Future of Coaching: Embracing the Opportunities of the 2010s at http://www.europeancoachinginstitute.org/conference_2008/
November 20-22, 2008 - Sydney Australia
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