Living organisation's vision and values

Vision and values

Hi Sarah

I’m sure you’re not alone in this – in my experience it does take time to get people to really connect to values.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

The simplest way to make a visual impact is to have people choose images that they think represent each of your values. This is a great activity for teams to do together and if possible they can creat their own ‘vision wall’ or collage. This helps to get people talking about why they chose images and you can notice common themes and differences.

Another useful activity is to help people think about the real purpose of their role. People often describe their jobs in terms of the tasks they do e.g. ‘I answer the phones’. If you can get them to think about the difference they make to the lives of your customers, or if they are not customer facing to their colleagues who are, then this builds pride in what they do and is good groundwork for talking about values. If they find this tricky then work backwards – what would happen if you didn’t do what you do.

In terms of teasing out the behaviours – you have to do just that! You could:

1. Ask them to look out for examples they see of the behaviours in action

2. Ask them to desribe what they would have to do in their role to demonstrate that behaviour

3. Again asking them to describe the opposite of displaying the behaviour then reversing it will throw up some new ideas

4. Ask them to think of a person – in the organisation or someone well known – that personifies a value then talk about why that is and what it would look like in their role.

I think one of the most important things is to keep going. It really does take time to embed values so lots of short, sharp activities over a period of time works well.

You do also need your managers to support them too. If the values on the wall don’t match the experience your front line staff have with their managers on a daily basis then they will feel sceptical about them.

I hope that helps and lots of luck!

Gill

http://www.leaps-bounds.co.uk

One Response

gill.leaps-bounds.co.uk says:

June 7, 2010 at 4:23 pm

Vision and values

Hi Sarah

I’m sure you’re not alone in this – in my experience it does take time to get people to really connect to values.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

The simplest way to make a visual impact is to have people choose images that they think represent each of your values. This is a great activity for teams to do together and if possible they can creat their own ‘vision wall’ or collage. This helps to get people talking about why they chose images and you can notice common themes and differences.

Another useful activity is to help people think about the real purpose of their role. People often describe their jobs in terms of the tasks they do e.g. ‘I answer the phones’. If you can get them to think about the difference they make to the lives of your customers, or if they are not customer facing to their colleagues who are, then this builds pride in what they do and is good groundwork for talking about values. If they find this tricky then work backwards – what would happen if you didn’t do what you do.

In terms of teasing out the behaviours – you have to do just that! You could:

1. Ask them to look out for examples they see of the behaviours in action

2. Ask them to desribe what they would have to do in their role to demonstrate that behaviour

3. Again asking them to describe the opposite of displaying the behaviour then reversing it will throw up some new ideas

4. Ask them to think of a person – in the organisation or someone well known – that personifies a value then talk about why that is and what it would look like in their role.

I think one of the most important things is to keep going. It really does take time to embed values so lots of short, sharp activities over a period of time works well.

You do also need your managers to support them too. If the values on the wall don’t match the experience your front line staff have with their managers on a daily basis then they will feel sceptical about them.

I hope that helps and lots of luck!

Gill

http://www.leaps-bounds.co.uk