Yesterday, I was with one of my clients running a workshop around Mission and Vision setting, and aligning on organisational Values. (I stressed this part must come before we set our North Star, Objectives and Key Results).
Why?
Fundamentally because your values are your guiding principles for why you behave as you do, the type of business and culture you want to foster, the type of positive relationships you want to form (colleagues/ clients), and it allows you to have a deeper sense of both satisfaction and meaning from being aligned to them.
Focusing on goals first (if at all - hear me out!), isn't the right focus, in my experience.
I would often achieve set goals but still be left feeling a sense of dissatisfaction or inner conflict. Things I couldn’t shake.
What I realised, and why I was there yesterday as a Consultant, running my own business, was that what drove my behaviour and the type of work or environment I wanted to be in, was aligned fully with my values. Finally. It's taken me a while. But here are a few of the standout values I uphold…
- Justice and fairness - anyone that knows me well knows how often I've spoken up in organisations to ensure people were treated fairly, including myself. Sadly not enough businesses take this seriously. And it leads to rapid-fire workplace stress and dysfunctional teams.
- Collaboration and empowerment - you can’t solve the business's problems and drive growth from your silo/ from your lane, without significant collaboration and being empowered by the leadership team to drive that change and work cross-functionally.
- Respect and kindness - Conflict well in a respectful manner, but be kind with your words and actions.
- Curiosity and open-mindedness - Remain open-minded to new suggestions, have a beginner's mindset and leave your ego at the door. The curious part has always come easy to me. But I’ve developed and now hugely value the open-minded approach over the years with only upside!
- Fun and humour - I look forward to working with people with whom I can share a bit of light-hearted humour, and remember not to take ourselves too seriously. It doesn’t mean every meeting or business engagement has to be a laugh a minute, far from it, but people who can disarm and have a bit of fun too, are my kind of people.
If you’re a small business owner and you feel the business has run away from your original mission and values, and something isn’t sitting right, take the time to reassess what’s important to you through to your core. Employees - is your current employer aligned with your core values?
Goals could come later. If at all. Because if we lived by and constantly checked in on our values, the rest would start to align. There were many different ways to reach goals, but if you knew your values well, you’d know exactly your “why” and the how and what would start to flow from there.
(Picture is just because I got new ones done 😂 )