You likely work for an organization or company that has “company values.”
That is to say, somewhere on the company website is a set of high-minded words that the company asserts are what guide its actions and decision making.
Do the decisions that get made demonstrate that? Is there harmony between the values as professed, and the decisions as made?
Do the organization’s leaders make decisions that stand in integrity with company values?
Decisions, Decisions
You make uncounted hundreds of decisions, some that happen without conscious awareness and some that undergo great stress and debate.
Do you know what values are driving your decisions?
Make a list of the values you want to inform your decisions. Write it down and keep it visible in your decision-making spaces – your desk, your computer, maybe even stash an index card in a frequently-used conference room.
If you have “company values,” make them visible as well.
Then use them actively to shape the conversation and discussion, especially when the decision puts values into conflict.
- “How is cutting this product from our lineup supporting our commitment to growth?”
- “It’s clear this initiative isn’t meeting targets. We asked that team to take on a challenge, which aligns with ‘risk taking’ and ‘innovation.’ Now we’re talking about letting them go because of ‘accountability.’ How do teams and team members believe in ‘risk taking’ if any failure becomes termination due to ‘accountability’?
- “We’re sitting in a room mapping out every team’s work for the next year. None of them are here in the room. How can we change our process to actually honor ‘collaboration’?
- “We have a chance to ‘innovate’ in a new space, and that’s important to us as an organization. It’s a big bet, and it challenges our commitment to ‘technical excellence’ in that we have little domain expertise, so early releases may struggle to live up to our standards. Which value means more to us in the long run?”
Bringing your values into focus delivers decisions that are higher quality and make sense to those outside the decision process. Decisions that bow to short-term emotions and pressures, divorced from any value besides “make the problem go away,” are lower quality and feel senseless.
What kind of decisions do you want to make more of?
You can do this. I can help.