New balls, please - what’s the value in workplace values?

It’s that time of year when Wimbledon has been upon us, with two weeks of lobs, tosses, backs hands and lemon barley. It’s also a time of year that I often hear the word ‘love’.

In tennis, love is used as a term in the scoring system and literally means nothing (one hypothesis suggests it comes from the French word “l’oeuf”, meaning egg, due to the written resemblance 0 has to it, but when pronounced sounds a bit like ‘love’).

Yet I would say that love for me is the most powerful word. It’s a word I use and think about often, and when I use it, I mean it.

You could say it’s one of my values, perhaps the strongest one and one that I have stuck with, maintained and used to guide me through this thing we call life. I’ve shown it, received it, felt it, and lost it.

I love my wife and kids (you can ask them!). I love my family (don’t ask them!). I love what I do. I love having a laugh, and I love playing drums. I really love food and drink, and I also love a challenge.

I do not, however, love stew, but that’s for another blog.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last 25 years discussing, challenging, and embedding values in organisations, and I’ve noticed that in a great many of these institutions, values tend to be words that are laminated, stuck up around the building and pointed at occasionally when you think you might be in trouble. But it can be quite difficult, especially in challenging times or when we are tired, stressed and overworked, to remember to put what we value at the centre of our decision-making processes.

Work-based values

Very often, work-based values can feel like they’ve been thrust upon you. Perhaps you’ve had no say in them or any real feelings towards them. At that point, they are empty, generic words.

Values only become valuable when we put action and behaviours into them; once we do that, it becomes what we do, and once we have that, it becomes you or your organisation's reputation and that can become a very powerful force when it comes to developing a positive culture and a brand that people want, not just tolerate.

Let me borrow your mind for two minutes (don’t worry, I’m not going to do a Derren Brown on you and make you eat an onion instead of an apple). I just want to show you how powerful words can be when we put action to them.

Take a look at the following list of positive words.

• Security
• Adventure
• Love
• Passion
• Health 
• Success
• Freedom 
• Intimacy
• Comfort

Pick one word from that list that you would most like to feel in your life at this moment in time.

Then look at the next list: 

• Anger
• Loneliness
• Rejection 
• Humiliation
• Failure 
• Guilt
• Frustration
• Depression

(Imagine if that was your Tinder profile)

Now pick one word from that list that you would least like to have in your life at this moment in time.

Once you have a word from each list, ask yourself this question:

Do you/would you spend your time, energy and decision-making trying to avoid the word off the negative list, or do you/would you spend your time, energy and decision-making truly going after the thing you want off the positive list?

Most people I’ve seen do this exercise spend the majority of their time trying to avoid what they don’t want, but invariably, that’s what they end up being surrounded by. They want love but don’t want rejection. They want success but don’t want failure.

It’s time to flip things over

But let’s flip it and go for the positive.

Imagine if, over the next 4-6 weeks, you put what you really wanted at the centre of every choice and decision you make. Imagine if what you really wanted was adventure. What would you start doing if you haven’t been? Would you pick up that guitar? Start writing that book? Book a holiday somewhere unexpected? Do your Couch to 5K?

When we put what we truly value at the heart of our decision-making processes, that’s when things start to change in extraordinary ways.

When we put actions and behaviours to words, that’s when they start to become who we are and what we do as people, and the same goes for organisations. But so often, for a variety of reasons, we can lose sight of why we do what we do, and that’s when we feel adrift from our sense of purpose. And everyone needs one of those to remain motivated, especially through challenging times.

Here are four things to think about when it comes to embedding your values and bringing them to life:

1. What are your values, both personal and professional?
2. What behaviours do you show so that you and the people you encounter can see and feel these values in action?
3. Have a conversation at work about three things you can do to make the workplace values intrinsic to what you do.
4. Discuss what behaviours will help/hinder this value on a day-to-day basis.

But back to love.

I try to embody this value by saying it often to the people that matter most, and I demonstrate it through my actions (the small things often add up). When it comes to my job, I want the feeling of loving what I do to come through every fibre of my being. As a friend once said to me, “Do you have an attitude worth catching?”

Before you embark on this values journey, be aware that this process is not a quick fix. It will require constant application, reflection, and renewal. But the rewards will last for a long time, and you’ll be known not just for what you say and do but for how you make people feel.

And that’s something I really do love.

If you would like support from the Laughology team to take a look at your organisation’s values, helping you take them from fancy laminated sheets to recognisable behaviours and actions, get in touch with our Doug. He’d ‘love’ to talk you through your options - doug@laughology.co.uk