“Values are the foundational beliefs and principles that guide and organisation’s culture, behaviour and decision-making” – my AI friend tells me.
Hannah translation – as a ‘set’, values should be a framework of guidance that enable best practice. Everyone in an organisation, employee, volunteer, service user, management committee, and other stakeholders, will have their own set of personal values. But in the workplace (and most certainly in the voluntary sector), we come together as passionate and driven individuals aiming to do our best for the cause we believe in.
More and more organisations are using their values in their recruitment processes, building like-minded teams who ‘buy in’ to our ethos. Done well, this is invaluable – relationship building is easier as people have things in common, successes can be celebrated consistently, ideas and innovation can spark. But perhaps the greatest test – how do the values show up when a problem arises?
Are they still fit for purpose when we need them to guide the way we deal with concerns or challenges, be they financial, relational, external, strategic or operational? And will our people feel supported?
As I said above, values should be our best practice guidance and when they are something we truly hold on to as an organisation, they come into their own to enable meaningful conversations (yes, even the really hard ones), and clarity in decisions.
At CAS, we have 5 values – Person-Centred, Responsive, Collaborative, Trusted, Enabling. Values buzzwords? Maybe. On the wall in our reception? Most definitely (and various other walls/places too) … But devised by the whole team and translated into meaningful behaviours? Absolutely.
Of course, there are times when we don’t live up to them – occasionally there are contradictions between them and we’re not robots, we’re humans and we make mistakes – but even when we don’t, we can bring the learning back to them and use them to guide us in our problem solving, decision making, and future-proofing. And Person-Centred is deliberately first in the list. Some find this odd in an infrastructure organisation whose charitable purpose is to support organisations not individuals, but in practice both internally and externally, it is the people in organisations we work with, form professional and peer relationships with, and support; and our work, in turn, helps those people to deliver services to people across the county.
We’re by no means perfect at it (having just read ‘Junk Values’ by Erika Clegg DL which I highly recommend), my mind is currently whirling with how we review them sooner rather than later to ‘test’ their fit – but their importance is distinctly recognised and I can honestly say have guided myself, the executive team, and the Board of Trustees through some tough challenges and decisions over the years as well as shaping our strategy and delivery models.
So as I’ve promised to do in this series, here’s the practical bit – 3 tips (3 doesn’t do it justice, but you must want a break by now!):
- Review your values – what they are (if indeed you have them, if not do the work to devise them and that’s not an agenda item on a management meeting – it’s a process). How are they being used across the organisation internally and externally? Are they still fit for purpose and meaningfully translated into behaviour? What impact are they having?
- Assess your processes and policies against them – for example, when looking at a new piece of work, are they deliberately considered? Are values-based conversations happening consistently – in wellbeing conversations, 121s, Appraisals etc? When was the last time your values were used in a Board paper requiring a decision?
- If a challenge arises – stop, pause to take the heat out of the moment, and use the values to frame your thinking and next steps. Bring every decision back to a ‘values test’ – not all decisions will hit every one, (remember I said earlier sometimes ours conflict?), but having the conversation and thinking through why, will in itself be enlightening and steer you in the right direction.
This blog is the 3rd in a 6-part series on challenge and crisis – next time, we’ll focus on the importance of risk management so watch this space and do get in touch if there are other topics you would like to see.
Hannah
