By Kevin Wimbish, MS, Co-Owner of Summit Wellness Centers, PLLC
Many organizations have mission statements, vision statements, or something on a wall somewhere that says something about where they are going and/ or who they want to be.
Many employees may feel that they discuss such things in large group meetings, only to feel that they don’t live these things out in their organizations. If we don’t live out our values with one another, it will have a detrimental impact on living those out with our clients/ customers, eventually getting off course, and losing our way.
So, if you feel this way.
Here are some tips on a process:
- Have your company values on a screen or dry erase board in front of the team.
- Talk about what those values mean to your team members. Make sure you get to the “why” behind the values. This is the fuel/motivation for them. This will likely lead to a conversation about living those out with clients/ customers.
- Turn the conversation inward. Here’s where it may get a little dicey. On a scale of 1-10, ask something like, “Please don’t name any names, but how are we doing living in light of these values with one another?” You could ask people to say/ write why they chose the number they did. If you think people won’t be open in a group setting, you may try an anonymous Google Form or just handwritten notes folded on note cards.
- Now, “what could we do to increase those numbers up 1-2 points over the next three months? Try to get specific. I.e. if a value is Service to Others, it might mean that when a need is presented via email/ staff meeting, that people volunteering to help one another goes up from 20% of the time to 40% of the time.
- Ask people to make a commitment to themselves and/ or to another person that they will work on this between now and the next team meeting. Try to invite people to get specific about what they will be doing consistently that impact this change. Just like any goal, consider the framework of measureable, attainable, and time-bound.
- Have regular team meetings in which at least a part of the meeting is checking in on how the above is going. Celebrate wins when it is going well. When it is not, discuss obstacles and what to do about them. Don’t judge or shame people when they’re not doing well. Celebrate progress, not hold to perfection. Be gracious. Agree on a way to correct course between now and the next meeting.
- Schedule the next meeting. Repeat. Keep working on it. Celebrate wins.
- Evaluate in three months and see where you are. You’ll likely be much more in sync with living in light of the value(s) of the organization than you and the team would have had you not taken this focused approach towards your organizational values.
Overall, organizational values are like family values, if they’re not clearly focused on, a lack of clarity, purpose, and synchronization will occur. There will be a sense of randomness and disorder that abounds. However, with an intentional focus on values, and living those out with one another first, the values will have no choice but get imparted to your clients and customers.
Kevin Wimbish, MS, is Co-Owner of Summit Wellness Centers, PLLC. He provides Life, Leadership, and Management Coaching as well as Organizational and Team Consulting. He has received his training from The College of Executive Coaching as well as a certificate in Executive & Organizational Coaching from Light University, a division of The American Association of Christian Counselors Foundation.
