Values - Personal & Engaged

We recently had a discussion about school values. Context was, this school has a set of values that are both at a personal level as well as at a collaborative level (we call this "engaged").

They went through an exercise to ask their staff to rate their list of values; rating a "1" from the list for most visible to the last for least visible. It turns out that the values at the "engaged" level were rated higher than the "personal" ones.

An interesting discussion ensued to determine how to make sense of the information collected.

Was it obvious that since the "personal" values are personal hence it is difficult to see? Or is it a cause for concern?

I think what we wanted to establish was this: even if these values are "personal", if people live by these values it would have been evident, personal or otherwise.

The School Leaders then posed an interesting question that, how if these personal values are lived out by individuals, what kind of impact would this make at the organizational level.

To this end we need to understand why values at personal level are extremely critical to organizational success.

Where in an ideal senerio where everyone in the organization lives by a set of timeless principled values, that would translate into a culture where everyone takes personal responsibilty for what happens and hence a no-blame culture becomes possible.

In other words we are speaking about an organization made up of individuals who have personal mastery. For such an organization three things will happen.

1) People choose how they would respond to any given situation.

2) As these individuals take personal responsibilty for the outcomes of their actions.

3) Knowledge work becomes possible.

Let's discuss these in turn. Choosing your responses to any given situation is like, yeah so what if the weather is gloomy, if life throws you a lemon you make lemonade.

These individuals will not complain about the kind of pupils we get. Nor will they complain about the lack of resources or support.

These individuals will find the best ways to address the cohort issue. Seek ways to work with parents, innovate their teaching practices, experiment with different techniques, and so forth. Of course it is easy to point the fingers at the children. But this will not be the style of such individuals.

Even if they tried all ways possible and yet not meet their targets, they will accept personal responsibility. It is just not their style to blame it on the child.

And because of their attitude, they would be creating work that will also benefit future generations as the kind of work they do will be worthy of retention and shared for the benefit of those that come after them.

You may realize that this is also true for any smaller outfit like a work team or a committee.

Next time, take the opportunity during your next discussion or meeting to identify such individuals on the team. How can you tell? Listen to their conversation. Is it focused on "what others can or should do" or is the emphasis on "what I as a member of the team can do".


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