Aligning Team Values and Your Vision

 A couple of weeks ago I posted an article about how team values shape your division/company/organization's culture. I offered a free assessment that I've used to determine your team's values (if you didn't get yours, just leave a comment and I'll send you the PDF).

I hadn't used the Values tool with my own team for five years and thought it would be an interesting excercise to see how the team's Value outlook had changed. The team has certainly changed. How, I wondered, had the values changed.

FIve years ago the team values were:

• Family Commitment
• Integrity
• Quality
• Excellence
• and a tie between Competence, Hard Work and Trust

Today, the team values are:

• Innovation
• Wisdom
• Hard Work
• Teamwork
• Family Commitment

It's quite a difference with only Hard Work and Family Commitment carrying over.

The next step in the exercise is for the team to clearly define these values. Any of these words can mean many things to each person. Consequently, our next step is to have the team define each word so my leadership team can know the boundaries of each word and how to maximize the culture accordingly. 

For example, Innovation to me means "executing creative ideas". To the team members it may mean simply "creative thinking". As a leader I need to know how they define the words and work towards alignment of the values to the overall goals of my area of responsibility. Alignment of culture to vision is key because in the end that's what gets the unit to the goals. Mis-alignment causes problems as people are feeling like they are working out of sync with their values. This feeling leads to poor execution and turnover.

What does your team value? Do those values align with your mission and vision?

Comments

[Jim Seybert]

Hi Wayne - I'd like a copy of the PDF on determining team values. Thanks.

Howard used to talk about making sure your assumptions were lined up with others . This goes along the same lines - good reminder.

[lonnad]

Hi There. I too would like a pdf copy of the assessment you use to determine your team's values.

[Larry Hoekman]

Hey Wayne - very nice blog. A few years back you directed me to someone at Thomas Nelson (now gone) and we worked on a first person Bible concept which almost made it to publishing. The issue was that it was merely a concept and needed a specific formatting. That has happened and I would appreciate being able to present that to someone at Thomas Nelson. You could see the concept at my blog www.God2me.wordpress.com

I hope all is well and say hi to Zach!!