THE IMPORTANCE OF VALUES AND RELATIONSHIP

 
THE IMPORTANCE OF VALUES AND RELATIONSHIP

Based on the feedback on an earlier article about culture I have been asked to write about creating high performing teams, and I suggested it wont be about "values". I somewhat brashly said; we do not expect a mission or vision statement from our family or friends, and we don't ask people their values and CSR activity when we join our hobby groups, sports teams or community groups.

That, of course, provoked some good challenge and so ahead of writing about creating high performing teams, I'd like to explain by views on "values".

Values by definition are "principles or standards of behaviour; one's judgement of what is important in life". I am not going to argue against the definition but I am going to debate the application, particularly how businesses publish them, staff recite them, and people hold them in high regard, but significantly ignore them.

Try this test, get your colleagues to recite the business mission, vision, and values, and then explain their own and see which is easier for them!

J.D. Meier has written a great article on "values" and gives examples of Amazon, Google, Microsoft and more. In the interests of brevity I won't repeat it but simply refer to it (See link below). These are great, but if Sam moved from Uber to Apple, or Google to Amazon, or indeed Microsoft to LinkedIn are we expecting Sam to change his values to fit-in with his current employer?

Maybe Sam comes from a different cultural background to Arden and Bergen, possibly a different religion, social-economic-group and education. Do we expect all these people to have exactly the same values in order to get along, as friends? Do we expect them to relinquish these values in favour of those of their employer in order to be productive colleagues?

Should we change our values like we change our clothes; different according to the circumstances? It is true that what is legal and acceptable today is very different to what was 10 years ago, 100 years ago and 1000 years ago. It seems sensible to update our principles or standards of behaviour accordingly. And I suspect experience of war, covid, birth and death and our own personal challenges may modify one's judgement of what is important in life.

So if every person has different values (according to culture, faith and experience) and every business has different values (even those providing similar products and services to the same consumers) what are the implications in-so-far-as they apply to "values".

If values and behaviours at an organisational level are important (for example in relation to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) which values should we "accept" and which should we "reject". What are the implications for individuals or marginalised groups if their "values" don't match their colleagues or their company?

I fear that putting people in categories is bad, unless it is a category of one and you have 7 billon of them! I think success of humanity comes from diversity, about 300 million years of it! I can see why we like to simplify and codify things. Life is so much simpler when everyone is either a hero, victim or villain. It becomes messy if we embrace 16 personality types (MBTI) with different passions and interests. And more so if we also take account of all the other possible variantions.

The secret behind unifying factors, like values, is to make them so vague, so generic, that everyone can subscribe to them. Make them detailed and specific and suddenly you will see the internal divisions that exist in every religion or political group. So if values are sufficiently bland that they can accommodate everyone that has to be good for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, but what does it say about values?

I will write an article about creating high performing teams, but I want to conclude by making a link to my starting proposition. I think what is key is relationship. You may have different priorities, interests and beliefs from your colleagues or team-mates. I am pretty certain every rebellious teenager has different priorities, interests and beliefs from their parents. I know different political and faith groups have diverging views. I don't think we need to be the same to be successful.  We don't need to impose a set of "values" we need a listening, accepting and learning relationship that helps us and others integrate, collaborate and perform, together.

Of course, you may not agree with my view. And that's my point. You dont have to. And I will accept you and listen to you, and learn from you nonetheless.

Brilliant Examples of Company Values
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brilliant-examples-company-values-amazon-google-microsoft-j-d-meier/