Unlike a lot of other systems (1,2,3) that see values as flowing out of vision, the Arrow IVVSS process I have adopted sees - more correctly i believe - values as shaping the culture of your organization out of which flows your vision of a preferred future.
As a corollary of this in many ways getting a company/charity's culture right is a pre-requisite for getting the vision right.
That is a way of saying that a group's culture is MORE important than its vision. Gulp.
That is another way of saying: Have limited time and resources to devote to moving your organization forward? Work on your culture/core values long before you devote much time to getting your vision/strategy/goals right.
That is yet another way of saying: Your current vision/strategy/goals are being achieved by your poor or lacklustre corporate culture. Start to change the culture first and you will see greater buy-in, adoption and excitement about the new vision/strategy/goals you eventually develop.
For those of you that don't trust me... the primacy of culture/core values is backed up by others.
For example Google's "vision" famously is "Don't be evil". Strange and very Gen X to be sure and certainly not a real picture of a preferred future... more of a motto than anything. Having listened to Jeff Jarvis' What would Google Do several times while delivering papers a couple years ago, what drives Google rather than its vision is its corporate culture: Being Googley. This was of course very apparent in the movie The Internship about 2 Gen Xers that go to work at Google and are judged on whether or not they are Googley enough.
So how do you define what your core values should be? We've used these 4 steps that i just made up as we are going along:
1. Distil into 4-6 words or short phrases what your core values CURRENTLY are. You currently have a corporate culture. It is hard to quantify in many ways. But if you can measure it, you can manage it. So measure you culture. Have focus groups, talk to staff, have online surveys, do all you can ask everyone you can:
What makes us US?
What makes US different from them?
What does working/volunteering/being here FEEL like?
Listen LOTS to people at this phase. Understanding what your core values currently are is VERY important to getting to core values that you want to have. Listen for repetition in words, phrases, attitudes. You're going to have be very "right brained" in this process but it will yield VERY helpful results. One (of many) core values I identified was:
Politburo or Wild West - In terms of how to get things done at GAC, we had a culture here things being bogged down in discussion FOREVER (Politburo) or people just taking things into their own hands and doing it without informing or involving anyone in on the decision (Wild West).
2. Having determined what your core values ARE, ask yourselves what specific historic occurrences, habitual actions and sustained attitudes contribute to what makes those your CURRENT values. This step will be VERY helpful as you plan how you to want to change your culture. It will give you a hit-list of habits to change, attitudes to work and new history to write going forward in order to start to foster a new culture.
3. Out of your time spent with God in Step 1 and the evaluation of what values you want to foster from step 2, trust that He will be leading you to a series of changes, ideas, thoughts, attitudes that He wants to see shape the actions, thoughts and culture of your church.
How will these emerge? Its hard to say. They just will. Often in contradistinction to some of the values that you currently possess. Values God led us to so far are:
Diversity - Learning about, celebrating and discipling the diverse cultures, generations and tribes within our community.
Creativity - Fun, experimental and energetic in our use of the talents, skills and giftedness of God's people at Glengate.
Fidelity - To God’s glory, His Word, each other and our family of churches the C&MA in Canada.
4. The final step is to develop at least 1 new habit, 1 new attitude and 1 new visible event/campaign/accomplishment that best embodies each of your new core values. More than even this plan, your Board has to pray for, champion and embody these values. But for example here is our "plan" to foster the new core value of Hospitality:
New Habit : Everyone wears name tags, every Sunday. Veteran or visitor everyone gets and wears a name tag to encourage conversation and connection.
New Attitude : Board members and Staff lead the way in NOT talking to friends and other church-connects on Sunday till they have connected with 5 new or less connected Glengaters. Board and VWNPHC members DON'T TALK building or church business in the sanctuary or foyer and certainly don't fight about it within the hearing of others. (which has happened... a lot)
New Campaign : Cookies for visitors. Starting October 1st, warm, home made cookies delivered within 1 week to visitors by church members in the neighbourhoods that the visitors came from. Use our "blue card" information to facilitate this.
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