Values.

Personally and professionally, individually and collectively, we show our values whether or not we acknowledge it. Several years ago, three very different bloggers wrote about values, and an article in a professional journal pointed to its importance.

Mark Chusill wrote for Harvard Business Review, Keep a List of Unethical Things You’ll Never Do. Vu Le, the nonprofit consultant who writes the Nonprofit AF blog, authored, Why Organization Values are So Sexy. Mark Leach and Laurie Mazur, in Nonprofit Quarterly, explained their necessity in Creating Culture: Promising Practices of Successful Movement Networks. And Seth Godin wrote the pithy post, Where’s the Money.

Chusill emphasized that staying constantly aware of our personal values keeps us off the slippery slope of doing unethical things. No one enters the workplace straight from school and says, “I’m going to cheat people, and skim funds, and cover up mistakes.” But one time you’re short; you “borrow” from a client’s funds and pay it back from profits. It doesn’t backfire, so you do it again. Each time it becomes easier. Yet if someone asked you if it was okay to steal, you’d say no. Really? Your actions say differently.

Le writes about making an organization’s values explicit. Instead of high sounding words on the wall, illustrate values with examples.  If one of the organization’s values is Community, then it becomes everyone’s job to stop and greet each person who comes into the office. The value of Integrity explicitly becomes, “We communicate our needs and expectations openly, and do not get angry at others’ failures to fulfill expectations we never clearly set.” As Le writes, this has helped his organization avoid internal conflicts, since so much conflict is really communications failure.

Beyond individuals and organizations, Leach and Mazur discovered that leaders of successful movements share the principle of being relentlessly explicit about values, principles, and practices. Along with being flexible and embracing change, these leaders live the culture that they are creating, and reinforce the network culture through their actions. Leaders openly point out when they miss the mark, explicitly returning to the agreed upon values.

Unlike Mission and Vision, Values come from within. How will you act? What can you do to ensure that you act the way that you hope you will? 

In your organization, what do your values look like in action? Do you believe it’s important for a person to be able to provide for themselves? Then what do you do when you realize your full-time employees are on food stamps? If you honor confidentiality, what if a major funder requires the name of each student who receives reduced tuition as a condition of her gift?

In the world of coalitions and alliances, if you value civility in interactions among people, what is your response when the head of one organization undermines the authority of a peer?

As Le points out, Values often sound great, but are not so easy to make concrete. Bringing everyone together and asking, what does it look like in action takes time, but it clarifies how you work together. It defines how you manifest your values in the work of your organization and your movement.

It is a worthy use of time at your next board retreat. What does your values statement say? What does it look like in action?