Not long ago, our research took us inside the headquarters of a brandname company who has done away with private offices in favor of communal work space. No one – not even top executives – gets a private office. Instead, team members move around the space, forming and reforming working groups in available space as the day’s work demands.
“We want the focus to be on the work, and on collaboration,” says the CEO of the company. The open workspace design keeps the focus exactly where he wants it to be, and this focus supports one of the company’s closely held values of collaboration.
Increasingly, values are an organizing principle within our companies – the heart of an organization out of which everything else may blossom. As such, they guide hiring and firing, shape decision making and strategy, and deeply influence morale and employee engagement. They become the cornerstone of the company’s culture, and a road map for course-correction, when needed.
Values as an Organizing Principle for Culture & Success
This concept – values as an organizing principle – is explored in depth in a recent iLead podcast featuring Dr. Linda Sharkey. In the podcast, Sharkey interviews two small business CEOs, Dr. Anna Amato of edtec, and Dr. Lee Murphy of Integrated Case Management, for their insights. (Amato and Murphy are both graduates of the executive doctoral program in values-driven leadership.)
Sharkey writes:
Values are shaping our lives in ways that we never experienced so acutely. With massive changes in demographics and over 2 billion people under the age of 20 who will be, or are, entering the workforce, values become increasingly more important. Additionally, more and more evidence is pointing to the fact that aligning one’s organization to positive values creates long term benefits. Join me in discussing the impact of value driven leadership with Anna Amato and Lee Murphy, both Ph.D. graduates from Benedictine University in Illinois. We will be sharing how values have been used to bring organizations together and help create truly innovative thinking, growth and employee loyalty – all important factors in today’s workplace.
Listen to the podcast at this link, then return to our website for more information on growing workplaces cultures with values as an organizing principle. We recommend this free resource, Making Values Meaningful: a Menu of Options for Senior Leaders.
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Cactus photo by Erol Ahmed.