We spent the last four posts taking a deep dive into how to inclusively unearth the solid core of an organization: vision + mission + values. It’s exhilarating to find just the right words that capture our true essence, and to share and celebrate it. Yet, it’s just the beginning of the beginning. Living our vision, mission, and values — what connects us to the cathedral we’re building together vs. individually laying bricks — is the real work.

Living our solid core isn’t about t-shirts, mugs, or conference room reminders, although visuals are helpful. Our vision + mission + values are good for nothing unless they are authentically present, unless they pulse through every vein and artery of the organization. They’re not the remit of the people and culture team, although that team is an important steward. Leadership needs to live and breathe the solid core — walk the talk — and the organization needs to buy-in, give feedback, and engage at all levels.

Just bringing our vision + mission + values into daily conversations is powerful reinforcement: when someone does something that embodies an aspect of our core, call it out. When we are working through a thorny problem, invoke the vision, mission, and values as a guide. Tell stories that make them come alive. Make them second nature.

Minding the say-do gap

An organization is an amalgam of systems and norms that collectively make up the enterprise operating system. The solid core of an organization serves as sort of a source code for systems design, from software platforms — ERP systems, people and financial processes and platforms, communications tools like email/messaging/Slack, file sharing, project and task management tools — to decision-making processes and the expected and accepted behavioral norms.

When say-do gaps start to creep in, our ways of working together break down and cause big headaches that can be hard to fix. The misalignments can be subtle, such as these examples Melissa Daimler pointed out in her HBR piece: “A company might espouse ‘work-life balance’ but not offer paid parental leave, . . . or might espouse being a learning organization that develops people, but then not give people the time to actually take classes or learn on the job. Maybe your company tells people to be consensus-builders, but promotes people who are solely authoritative decision makers.”

Years ago when I read Ari Weinzweig’s assertion that every decision is a moral decision, my first thought was, “That’s not true! It’s not even possible. How in the world is a decision to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (which I happened to be doing at the time) a moral decision?” Hmm... where’d the peanut butter come from? The jelly? The bread? What unnecessary environmental harm might have been caused? What worker might have been paid a non-living wage or subjected to unsafe work conditions? Am I honoring my body with this choice?

I’ve come to appreciate that organizational decisions big and small all link to vision + mission + values — our organizational moral compass. And many are under our radar. I doubt the examples Daimler noted above were intentional. It’s more likely they resulted from the unexamined consequences of decisions not aligned with the solid core.

Inspired by mindfulness practices, the four A’s offer a simple rubric that can help:

Awareness: be aware that a decision is being made or an action taken. Pause.

Attention: focus attention on the action and examine the consequences through the lens of our vision + mission + values

Alignment: align decisions intentionally with our solid core

Allowing: let the decisions play out and be a data scientist to their outcomes. What’s working? Where do we have gaps and misalignments, and what can we do to address them?

And, be transparent and share the responsibility. The people doing the work know best where the misalignments are. Ask them. Listen to them. Invite their solutions.

Back to Earth

No organization is perfectly in sync with their vision, mission, and values, and there are times (and lots of them) when things seem hopelessly broken. How could that decision have been made when it is so clearly against what we collectively believe in? Why are people leaving for other jobs when we’ve tried so hard to create a great work environment? Operating consistently within our solid core is an ideal, a quest — something we constantly strive for, but never quite reach — a dynamic system of action, examining actions, and adjusting to align. Just like anything worth doing in life.

Thoughts are welcome