Living Out Your Core Values
Every person, family, and organization have core values. These are the positive elements that are the foundation of a person’s or an organization’s identity and character. They develop naturally and, when leaned into, they drive behavior. But, we often do not think about what our core values really look like in actual decisions and behaviors. Thus, core values such as honesty, integrity, justice, and kindness may not be lived out within the organization. This leads to the reality that many organizations have operational values that are not congruent with the core values. That dissonance can cause organizations to fail.
Thus, simply knowing your values is not enough. Aligning operational values (seen in decisions and behaviors) with the core values of an organization takes intentionality. We need to ask ourselves a few questions: What does this value actually look like? What would I actually be doing or not doing if I was employing this value? If I turned on a video camera, and caught you being respectful, or kind, or full of integrity, what would it actually catch you doing?
Here is a process, a set of questions, to be intentional:
Core Value: ****
By that we mean: ****
What does this look like in action?
How can we measure it?
What happens when we fail to live this value out faithfully?
What is the biggest obstacle to living this value out?
What would happen if you gathered you staff and leaders and talked about your core values in this way? Give it a try! It might bring you “value!”
