Many CEOs, including my clients, are super keen on breaking through silos and building collaboration in their business. Taking your organisation on the Values Journey is a way to change from silo mentality to whole business thinking.
When one client asked me to work with 150 people across many units in the same directorate, the goal was clear: to build a closer bond both across units and within units. I bet that you can relate to that need!
When you are involving a large number of people and of business areas, it is often important to take a “short and sharp” approach that maximises involvement and minimises disruption to everyday operations.
So my solution was to bring the team together for a day to work on both personal and corporate values in an engaging and fun way.
Living The Values From The Ground Up
In such cases, “Values Journey”** is a powerful tool to guide personal awareness of values and impact on behaviour. Importantly, it provides input into shaping and developing a united workplace built on corporate values – built from the ground up.
It’s pleasing to see values taken on at a personal level where all employees take responsibility for behaviours at work.
**Bridgeworks has the licence to use “Values Journey”
From KPI’s to Values to KBI’s
We all have heard about KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) but have you heard about KBI’s? KBI’s stand for “Key Behavioural Indicators”, essentially ‘Above the Line and Below the Line’ behaviours?
These ‘above and below the line’ behaviours generally are teased out of what an organisation has established as their guiding values.
A value is, or should be, a critical foundation of the way business is carried out. For example, if ‘collaboration’ was one of our guiding values, did our result build or weaken the way we work together as a team?
Most businesses know their KPI’s. Typically, we know what our sales, production or budgetary targets are. And for those of us who are task oriented, these make complete sense: Set a target, work out a plan to get there, measure results as you go, then celebrate success or reset strategy if falling short of targets.
From The Values Journey To Above & Below the Line Behaviours
KBI’s are not so easy to establish and yet Key Behaviour Indicators are a more powerful driver of success.
A strategy I have used with several clients is posing two questions:
- With your corporate values in mind, what are acceptable workplace behaviours that best engage you and build the most productive workplace?
- What are the non-acceptable behaviours that disengage and unravel your workplace culture and performance?
Sounds easy? No – bringing all the above to light can be tough. It requires commitment and trust. For example, it’s one thing to have ‘honesty’ or ‘integrity’ as one of your values. However it requires a ‘safe’ environment where people are comfortable calling out both good and bad behaviours That is the real challenge!
In Victor Frankl’s words “To give off light, you need to endure burning”
Starting On Your Business Values Journey
The starting point is allowing staff to input what they see as “Above the Line” and “Below the Line” behaviours. That critical awareness enables you to create a final document that can be signed by all as a commitment to say: “I am happy to live by these behaviours and happy to keep others (including management) to account”
It may sound risky, but experience shows that if done right, it can work beautifully.
Build a Safe Working environment
If you are looking to build a ‘safe’ working environment built around trust, I’d love to have a chat with you. This has been my passion working with businesses for over 20 years.
Give Me A Call (Wayne Dyson – 0402 300999)
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