A521.5.4.RB- Aligning Values

I should count myself lucky, as most that are part of the workforce may not always have great things to say about their organization. They might not have any nice things to say at all. But I do. I could still be considered the new kid on the block but I know quality when I see it, feel it and am part of it. It is a true pleasure to be part of a genuinely ethical community and there are so many organizations that could really learn a great deal about ethical values if they took a moment to reassess their priorities. According to Denning (2011) ethical communities have three basic components: trust, loyalty and solidarity. These values seem to be intertwined and are prerequisite to each other to exist as a collective. 

Denning (2011) details trust, loyalty and solidarity as follows from his text The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative:          

    

    Trust: the general expectation among members that their fellows will behave ethically toward them.

    Loyalty: acceptance of the obligation to refrain from breaching one another's trust and to fulfill the duties entailed by accepting that trust.

    Solidarity: caring for other people’s interests and being ready to take action on behalf of others,even if it conflicts with personal interests.

My organization is quite large and can be thought of as parts of a machine, broken up into departments based on what function is in action. My department is even divided into sections based on purpose. The team I am a part of includes me and six other people who are guided by our director. To be quiet frank, I feel that there is not a lack of values presently at my organization. I trust my team, director and organization implicitly and feel loyalty to uphold the trust that has been given to me and that I return to others.                  

I feel like solidarity is part of my working life every single day and it reminds us that we are all working toward a common goal. We are all academic advisors for the online graduate program. We all do the same job and know the same things. To make sense of what could be chaos, we are broken up into alphabet sections. Whenever someone is out of the office we do coverage. This allows someone to be sick or take a vacation without worrying about coming back to a pile of work that could not easily be caught up with once it starts to snowball and build up. There are times each term that feel like in any given day you may never be caught up again, which is what makes coverage truly special. There is a schedule that has the coverage section divided between the remaining advisors. By each doing a little we make a big difference. 

Trust, loyalty and solidarity are so important in coverage situations because of what coverage entails. Sure, my own personal interests would prefer not to do coverage. Currently one of the advisors is out on maternity leave, which means every day in addition to my four hundred and seventy students I also work with one hundred and forty extra students. I know that it matters for our team goals, for the organization and for the students. I also know that when I am out of the office it makes me breathe a lot easier not to have my work looming over me. We are required to track of everything on a spreadsheet. When you are out, all of the advisors have access to your spreadsheet to make sure what has been done is accounted for and is being tracked. Without trust, this would be a nightmare because someone could easily delete essential information spitefully if the inclination presented itself. I absolutely do not have this fear because I know with these values in place through my organization and my team there would be no reason for it, we would all suffer in the end.

If the members of our team were to change or these values started to slip, reestablishing them would be vital for the continued success. Trust could turn to distrust and suspicion, loyalty to disloyalty and betrayal and solidarity could dissolve into discord and antagonism. It takes an awful lot of energy to watch one’s back that could be spent working together, dividing and conquering the work and getting great team results. Without aligned values you can learn to get by for a while, but that does not lead to flourishing or thriving. When values are not aligned the question is how long can you make it work? For long term success persevering ethical organizational values must be developed, aligned and maintained.

Reference: Denning, S., (2011). The leader’s guide to storytelling; Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass.