Towards Being a Values-Forward Organization

Over the last few blog posts, we have described our process to determine and articulate our mission, vision, goals, and more. In the below post, I’d like to share more about the developmental trajectory of our organizational values.

The “Values-Based” Discourse

In business operations and management, there are so many different buzzwords that may appear in Google searches or be studied in MBA textbooks. The term “values,” however, stands out because it is said to withstand the test of time (and transitions of people, projects, products, etc).  According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), values-based organizations are said to “be shaped by a clear set of ground rules establishing a foundation and guiding principles for decision-making, actions and a sense of community.” 

For over two decades, values have been part of the discourse of human resource management, organizational theory, and business ethics. The term “values-based” emerged in the early 2000’s and has further been applied into consistent areas of study and schools of thought, such as “values-based organizational culture (VBOC)”, and others. In his paper published by the Chair of Economics and Ethics at the Universidad de Navarra, Fostering Values in Organizations, Antonio Argandoña, argues:

  1. “Values are not the icing on the cake but the basic structure that supports the building.

  2. Any manager who does not take values into account – both his own and other people’s – will be a bad manager.

  3. Values are part of the companies’ distinctive competences and, therefore, shape their long-term success (although not necessarily their short term profitability).

  4. The values that a company chooses as the anchor for its distinctive competences will be fundamental to shaping its strategy; indeed, one can safely say that two companies with different values will follow different paths.

  5. We all have values, but they need to be defined, discussed and used; and a vital part of this process is to ask ourselves how we can foster values, both within the individual and within the organization.”

Argandoña intrinsically ties values to an organization’s value and long-term impact, while outlining the beginning of a process to develop, articulate, and implement values throughout the people and projects of the organization.

Further – as mentioned before – a values-based organizational culture (VBOC) is key to the success of that process. Again, Argondoña states, “Values are reflected in decisions; the repetition of values in decisions shows the existence of a virtue (and strengthens it); and the body of virtues shapes a character, which gives consistency to subsequent decisions until a conduct is defined.” In order to define the conduct of an organization – the ‘how’ of its work – the values of a team must be defined and acted upon through their behaviors.

In the last decade, the narrative that Millennials, Generation Y, and Gen Z-ers are more focused on living (and working) their personal values has become increasingly pervasive. In fact, numerous studies show that specific tactics can be used by employers to appeal to the values-based approaches of younger workers.  Our values, our work, and our lives are not separate things; in fact they are one in the same.

As a Collective of primarily 30’s and under, this is no doubt where we, at Creative Generation fall in this discourse. When Creative Generation got started, we were primarily interested in a values-driven culture where our team members could find alignment between their personal values and the organization’s values creating a community of practitioners “doing good work with good people.”

Moving from Values-Based to Values-Forward

As our work got started in early 2019, along with our mission, vision, and (first set of) goals, we articulated – what we called at the time – our principles. They were:

  • Pursuing Justice through Creative & Social Change

  • Fostering Intergenerational Collaboration

  • Empowering Youth Voice & Action

  • Honoring Diversity and Enabling Radical Inclusion

These principles guided our work and informed the co-created projects we developed with collaborators. Over time, we instituted certain cultural practices – like our Quiet Time or the ethos of radical grace – which enhanced these principles. Yet, they were not named outwardly or explicitly. 

Last summer as we underwent our realignment process, these principles did not quite serve our purposes. We sought to more clearly define and articulate a set of values, which would help us make key decisions and equally inform our organizational culture and individual actions – we wanted to go beyond “values-based” and become “values-forward.”

So, we landed on a set of ten values, which are both listed and explained on our website here.

The ten new values of Creative Generation.

What is more important that listing and explaining these values, is how they are implemented into our work in a values-forward way. Through a methodic process spanning three months from September – December 2021, we fully integrated these values into numerous internal processes, such as:

  • Including our values on the very first page of all proposals and explaining them (and our work reflected in them) during our first meeting with potential collaborators;

  • Embedding our values in internal processes like hiring, onboarding, training, and more;

  • Aligning our values with the policies and procedures within our organizational handbook;

  • Employing our values in project planning, tracking, adjusting, and reporting; and 

  • Including our values as a non-negotiable part of our Adaptive Impact Plan – the tool we use for organizational decision-making. 

As we emerged into 2022, we did not want a day to go by when we did not think about our values in all that we did: every decision, plan, and dialogue. For our organizational culture to thrive, our people to achieve our collective mission, we needed to lead with our values.

I should note, however, that this approach does not come without any hiccups. Sometimes, in order to center curiosity and creativity, we need to spend more time. Other times, in order to faster intergenerational collaborations, we need to challenge ourselves or others to share or stay quiet. Sometimes we need to eliminate screen time and meet on the phone while in nature. We have even chosen to eliminate our own bonuses in order to invest strategically in a project we all believed in. 

Regardless, though, this values-forward approach has left us complete, fulfilled, validated, and hopeful.

Values-Forward Personal & Collective Development

While our Collective continues to grow and our work together expands, it was important to us to deeply integrated our values-forward approach into the future organizational culture. In January, we began a new process contributing to our personal and collective development. 

Historically, we always centered our personal development through 20% creative time to spend learning and growing to meet our individual needs (with support from our colleagues). Additionally, we spent monthly (or sometimes bi-monthly) meetings collectively learning together on certain topics related (or not!) to our work together.

In 2022, we are piloting a new system based on our values-forward approach: This system has articulated a set of competencies aligned with our ten values. These competencies often manifest as behaviors which we strive to either 1.) personally develop over time or 2.) contribute to our collective’s development over time. We each completed personal development plans articulating both the competencies we hoped to develop and competencies we felt we could help our collective to develop.

For example, I chose to work on the value of Inspiring Joy and the competency of Provides Authentic Recognition. I chose this because – and I quote from my own plan here – “Our team members, at Creative Generation, are rockstars. I want to more regularly celebrate their successes and bring attention to the good work that I see (but others may not!). Now that this has been communicated, my community both assist in my work towards this goal and also hold me accountable.

Interestingly, there were overlaps in what we all hoped to achieve over our time focused on personal and collectively development. Here are the top prioritized values/capabilities among our team in 2022:

  • Centering Creativity and Curiosity: Dedicating time and energy to creative approaches

  • Stewarding Youth Power: Collaborating authentically with youth

  • Fostering Intergenerational Collaboration: Establishes and engages in opportunities for mentorship

  • Recognizing our Privilege: Builds networks and connections

  • Inspiring joy: Providing authentic recognition

And unsurprisingly, there were several competencies we all avoided. These were the topics of our very first Team Learning Session of the year.

As this process continues to develop, we hope to share it out to the field as a case study in values-forward professional development.

Creating a Values-Forward Discourse

If this shift from “values-based” to “values-forward” resonates with your, your work, or your organization, please share it with us – we would love to learn and share!

As with all of our own operations, we commit to sharing out our progress. At the one-year mark from this shift – in Summer 2022 – we will once again gather to evaluate these approaches and more deeply explore the Values-Forward Competency Framework – I look forward to sharing more with you then.

My personal hope is that through our little actions to be values-forward, and your little actions to do the same, we can shift this discourse and provide more examples, ideas, and replicable actions to drive our field forward.