Our Approach:

Managing Values is a values driven organisation committed to helping other organisations identify and codify the workplace values that will help their employees thrive while also helping the organisation achieve its business goals.  Interestingly, a major workplace study carried out some years ago found that the four major values that people felt were missing in modern workplaces were:

• People want to grow
• People want to be dealt with honestly
• People want to feel included in the organisation
• People want to be respected as individuals

For those who get it right, management by values renews employee commitment and enhances employee morale as control gives way to a more flexible and trusting environment.  Managing Values’ mission is to help workplaces assist their people to get their needs met. We believe that all successful organisations in the values area are successful because they nurture inclusive organisational cultures that:

• State a clear purpose and set of values that workers can embrace
• Define key relationships inside the organisation and between the organisation and its stakeholders
• Promote a shared vision for success
• Measure employees’ actions against stated organisational values

Organisations in all sectors of the economy today are formalising and publishing the values they intend to use to guide and manage their relationships with employees and stakeholders. These values guide the character development of the organisation and lay the basis for the organisation’s accountability to its stakeholders.  Without prescribing what a set of values should look like, we seek to help organisational leaders develop values protocols that help employees better understand their workplace accountability’s and assist them to enhance their workplace experiences.  This is achieved through the following processes:

STAGE 1

The process of clarifying an organisation’s values begins with clarifying:

• the values currently being lived out in the organisation
• the values its members aspire to
• the boundary between personal and organisational values and
• the values desired by its wider stakeholder group

Managing Values works with the organisation to clarify the status quo and build commitment to the organisation’s values initiative.  This is designed as an inclusive process to ensure that the final values selected are authentic and employees can commit to them.

Managing Values interviews selected organisational representatives and related stakeholders to gain an understanding of the current awareness of how the organisation’s values are understood and applied and any perceived tensions between the stated values that might lead to ethical grey areas.

STAGE 2

Here we build the business case to secure buy in from the board room to the back room to the values initiative.    This is done via a series of workshops where we facilitate a dialogue with organisational members to position values as:

• The organisation’s success formula (aligned to strategy)
• A blue print of the leadership model
• A valuable collaborative decision making model
• Clarifying the rules for internal success and shaping how culture evolves
• Guiding the Personality of organisation
• Integral to performance management indicators
• The basis of dialogue with external stakeholders

STAGE 3

• Draft Core Values & Communication Strategy

The research collated is then used to draft a set of values and supporting organisational behaviours.  These are then presented to the Executive team for validation.  Once they have been signed off by the executive team, they are rolled out to organisational members via a workshop program.

STAGE 4

Roll out workshops designed to skill employees in values decision making using the organisational values to address a set of typical workplace issues.

Typically workshops are designed to:

• Promote a shared understanding of the types of behaviours that will represent the organisation’s stated values in pursuit of its business goals
• Make the connection between organisational values and cultural consistency
• Draw the boundary between personal and organisational values and when one takes priority over the other
• Raise employee awareness of the organisation’s values and skill members in value-based decision making
• Assist participants to better understand the macro context of social changes and the resulting new expectations of organisational members

Field Experience:

NOT FOR PROFIT SECTOR:

In the not for profit sector, Managing Values has developed values based initiatives including:

• Identifying core values to underpin corporate sector partnering programs
• Codifying values and supporting behaviours
• Training organisational members in values based decision making and problem solving
• Identifying strategies to align organisational systems with values statements

BANKS:

Working with several financial institutions, Managing Values has facilitated value research to identify current and aspirational values.  These were then codified into corporate values statement and aligned to existing organisational systems before being rolled out in workshops with employees.

INFRASTRUCTURE COMPANIES:

As part of alliance partnering contracts, we have facilitated the development of a set of values to guide the alliance project. These were researched with representative employees from each partnering organisation in facilitated workshops.  The values were then codified into a values statement with supporting behaviours to guide ongoing organisational culture development of the Alliance team.