The Power of Human Connection: How Goalbook’s Core Value of Relationships Originated
For 12 years, Goalbook has been supporting special education teachers in K–12 districts and schools with Goalbook Toolkit, a research-based, online tool that guides educators in developing and implementing higher-quality IEPs. Throughout these years, Goalbook has striven to create a working environment where team members are genuinely cared for and appreciated as much as the districts and partners it serves.
Because Goalbook believes in the power of human connection, the company intentionally invests time, resources, and energy into its core value of relationships.
However, this core value wasn’t created from the beginning; rather, it was discovered in the early years.
Goalbook was formed in 2011, and in the early years of the company, there were no articulated values or vision. The primary focus was survival.
Once he knew the company could survive, co-founder and former educator Daniel Jhin Yoo began to probe his own — and fellow Goalbook teammates’ — motivation for doing the work.
So in 2013, Daniel sat down with each of the 11 Goalbook employees at the time and asked them the following two questions:
- Why did you join this company?
- What do you enjoy most about being here?
One of the shared themes that came out of employees’ answers was the interactions people had with each other. Employees shared they enjoyed collaborating and felt that their work was truly valued by others.
As a result of these conversations, Daniel felt more resolve and determination to not only articulate core values for the company, but amplify them.
Doing this meant directing the force of the existing group experience instead of putting something into place that didn’t exist. It meant identifying something that was experienced already amongst employees, defining what it would mean going forward as Goalbook would grow, and providing opportunities for employees to continue the practice of connecting with each other.
“I knew the experience at Goalbook had to be a different experience from the impersonal, big company where you’re a cog in the machine,” said Daniel. “In environments like these, we can reduce each other down to work production units. For example, what has the work production unit produced today?”
“…the hope is that through relationships employees will recognize that coworkers are humans with dignity and value, not just machines that produce.”
The core value of relationships in a corporate context works as an opposing concept to the dehumanizing reduction of others to merely work production units. Instead, the hope is that through relationships employees will recognize that coworkers are humans with dignity and value, not just machines that produce. Some ways this could be accomplished are through genuine care for each other and opportunities to connect in authentic ways.
In the early years at Goalbook, positive working relationships in which folks felt like they and their work were valued were already occurring. But once relationships were defined as a corporate value, did the working environment change?
According to Nick on the Customer Success team who has been with Goalbook for four years, “The human element is emphasized here. We’re not machines and not asked to be like machines. Goalbook is really a place where identity is affirmed; a place where we’re encouraged to be our authentic selves. It’s a place where we can show up fully in the roles that we have, and a place where we’re challenged directly when we can do better. It’s a place that, for me, feels like people really listen first and try to understand who we are, and then respond in a way that honors the individual. We care both professionally and personally, and it’s not just lip service — it’s really honored.”
“Truly caring for another person both personally and professionally means caring about the work they do and wanting them to do their best work.”
This is not to say that the aim of the core value of relationships is to have everyone be best friends with each other. Rather, it’s about professional, working relationships that value the dignity in others while working with them. Truly caring for another person both personally and professionally means caring about the work they do and wanting them to do their best work. When someone feels that they matter as an individual and that the work they do matters, it is more likely that they will do quality work.
Ryan, who is an Educator Engagement Specialist, spoke on how the personal and professional relationships work in tandem together. He said, “In order for us to accomplish the work at the level we want it to be, it requires us to engage with one another in very candid and vulnerable ways. That doesn’t mean laying it all out there in terms of personal lives, but having a professional relationship means taking the risk of being honest about the work you produce and being able to receive that as well.”
“Our leadership team models what it looks like to have healthy professional relationships,” Ryan continued. “They structure time to have vulnerable conversations, but you don’t have to constantly feel like you need to pour yourself out to your teammates. We have one-on-one time every week or every other week to talk to your boss about whatever you need to talk about.”
Gretchen, a District and Customer Success Manager who’s been with Goalbook for four years, also shared about how leaders demonstrate building healthy working relationships: “When I started, I observed my direct manager give a training; I was observing for my own learning. After the training, I remember debriefing with my manager, and he asked if there was any feedback I could give him. I thought, ‘He is a master, and here he is asking me for feedback?’ He asked in such an authentic way that it helped build a relationship of being colleagues.”
The vertical modeling of healthy professional relationships by the leadership team and those they supervise has in turn played out horizontally among teammates: “Over and over again, when I observe other people for my own growth, everyone asks for feedback. We are here to support each other and build that professional relationship,” Gretchen said.
Building Relationships Requires Ongoing Work
None of this is to say that Goalbook has relationships completely figured out, however. It’s a work in progress. And one that Goalbook is committed to continually investing in, especially as the organization grows both in number and complexity.
For example, “Community in Relationship” was a company theme for the year of 2023. To support this theme, Community Agreements and Race-Based Affinity Groups were created to maximize opportunities for building relationships.
Community Agreements are a collective vision for how teammates want to be in relationship with one another. They are explicitly developed and enforced by the group, not by an external authority; as such, they must be created by the group.
In 2023, Goalbook team members co-created a set of community agreements that serve as a guiding resource for how Goalbook’s core values of Relationships and Growth, along with its new DEIA definitions, show up at work.
Race-Based Affinity Groups are spaces for folks who have similar relationships to racism to practice disrupting racist systems and to advance Goalbook’s commitment to anti-racist action. Because different people and groups need different things when it comes to this practice, working in a community offers support, empathy, and relatability that can contribute to vulnerability and going farther, faster.
Desired outcomes for race-based affinity groups include: assessing Goalbook’s progress in anti-racist organizational development, community- and solidarity-building activities, and sharing and reflecting on personal experiences.
The core value of relationships was not created; rather, it was discovered. The discovery of the driving force of relationships at Goalbook helped to point everyone in the same direction and created a foundation for progress to continue on what relationships look like at Goalbook and how they will continue to advance moving forward.
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