Rationale for defining our core values: Identifying the values that are necessary to create an ethical, quality-focused, successful group of people, while also identifying behaviors that support group efforts--as well as those behaviors that tear group efforts down--are essential tools for group cohesion, allowing each group associated with Greater Indianapolis for Change to share the same set of values.
The Core Values of GIfC: A group-development model will help all groups associated with Greater Indianapolis for Change to increase productivity, build morale, encourage group harmony and develop cooperative leadership skills by offering six key values: Trust, Empathy, Risk, Genuineness, Success, and Interdependence.
TRUST:
Trust is the belief and confidence in the integrity, reliability and fairness of a person or organization. Trust is an essential human value, the lubrication that keeps teams functional when conflict arises.
What behaviors build trust?
- Sharing information
- Soliciting and implementing people’s ideas
- Establishing and communicating expectations, standards and ground rules
What behaviors destroy trust?
- Competition between members
- Lack of follow-through
- Falsifying information
- Inconsistency and lack of predictability
EMPATHY:
Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings and ideas of another person. It is essential for resolving conflict in ways where everyone wins. Each member has certain rights that are linked to empathy, including the right of respect, emotional safety, physical safety and opportunity for fulfillment. Empathy, therefore, has a powerful influence on successful conflict resolution and team harmony.
What behaviors build empathy?
- Desire to understand others
- Collaboration
- Developing excellent listening skills
What behaviors destroy empathy?
- Narcissism and self-obsession
- Rationalizing that the end justifies the means
- Aggressive competition
RISK:
Risk is a potential exposure to loss or injury resulting in fear of the unknown. Risk is also the fuel behind change and quality improvements. Therefore, organizations that fail to look at errors as learning tools are not as responsive to its members as organizations that do.
What behaviors build risk?
- Feedback and coaching
- Establishing accountability and responsibility
- Debriefing completed projects and developing improvement plans
What behaviors destroy risk?
- Punishing people who make mistakes
- Failure to clarify goals and expectations
- Criticism
- Perfectionism and over-analysis
GENUINESS:
Genuineness is a personal quality each person needs to bring to the team. It promotes sincere, honest, respectful and direct communication in an open and responsible way.
What behaviors build genuineness?
- Confrontation and feedback skill development
- Sharing information and discussion of concerns
- Respect for self and others
- Anger management
What behaviors destroy genuineness?
- Inferences made, and not challenged, about people’s behavior and intentions
- Not speaking the truth about one’s observations, facts or feelings
SUCCESS:
Success means effectively achieving what an organization has set out to do. For this reason, it’s essential that team members clearly understand and commit to an organization’s mission and goals.
What behaviors build success?
- Building commitment and ownership of group goals at all levels of organization
- Involving as many members’ ideas into goal implementation as appropriate
- Establishing and communicating quality standards to all levels of operation
What behaviors destroy success?
- Withholding information caused by competition between work groups
- Poor morale
- Lack of direction
- Short-term problem solving
INTERDEPENDENCE:
Interdependence relies on behaviors founded on sharing, openness, acceptance, and support. It’s based on the idea that if "we win, I win." Interdependence, therefore, means that two or more people appreciate and rely on each others’ strengths, and are responsible for their own limitations.
What behaviors build interdependence?
- Win-win problem solving
- When procedural and communication errors transpire between people-apologize and forgive
- Team building
- Building a sense of responsibility and accountability among leaders and members
What behaviors destroy interdependence?
- Encouraging leaders to believe they have all the answers
- Encouraging leaders to believe they must solve all the problems
- Allowing an Us and Them attitude to thrive within the group
Expected results of core value definition: Core values strike a balance between how work is done and the people doing the work. When values are recognized and held as important, the resulting conduct creates greater harmony among people, which results in less strife. The payoff is increased creativity and improved morale. In those organizations where behavior standards are spelled out and the expectations of how people are to treat one another are commonly known, both group harmony and increased productivity follow.
**Adapted from TIGERSTM, a group-development model that addresses key values which lead to team building.
