Post by Kwando on Aug 5, 2015 16:12:31 GMT 12
I'd like to talk about how i've been experimenting with value-based action at work.
A couple of months ago I had a six month checkup at work, where you review your progress and review what you've done in the last couple months, decisions you've made in the interest of your career growth, and what are you plans and career goals for the next 6 months, 1 year, 3 years etc and the steps you plan to take. We have these questions in the form of a word document template which you're supposed to print out, fill out, and take to the meeting to discuss with your manager. I did this, and took it to the meeting. I was sitting in front of my manager, Hussain, and he says "Ok Mitchell, take it away." As I'm about to open my mouth, I realized, wait, this is all bullshit. I've only written things on here that I know he would want to hear (or at least I think he would want to hear), and if I'm honest with myself, I actually don't make decisions based on an identity (e.g. Senior business analyst).. I don't even have an identity of myself as wanting to be a certain person or role in 6months time, let alone work at this company in 6 months time. So, instead of talking through the document, I said "Hey Hussain, I want to be honest with you. This form is actually inaccurate. I make my decisions now based on my values." And then I pulled out a pen and drew a mind map on the back of the paper with my core values I'm currently living by and have been in the last 3 months - presence, creator, curiosity, honestly, playfulness, courage, order. And I then walked through examples of the decisions I made in the last 3 months which had been based on those values. A few examples:
Afterwards, Hussain thanked me for being honest and having the courage to lead the conversation in a much different direction that noone had taken it before. The result of that was that he wants me to be responsible for reassessing our team values and create a promotional brochure that we'll use to communicate to our clients. So by me living by my values, I'm able to have so much more of an effect on other people and it makes me feel really good. I love that quote by Jim Carrey, "The most valuable currency in this world is the effect you have on other people", and I feel that when we are living by our values and expressing and taking action based on our values, this is like the real true gold. When we live based on fear, everything we say, our relationships and the results we get are just fake, and we don't have the effect we were meant to have on people. I encourage you to ask yourself, how would I live by my values in this moment? Even if you just pick one value, like curiosity, or honesty, and look for opportunities throughout the day to live by that value. e.g. 'Curiosity Mondays'. Whether it be talking to a cashier but going beyond the transactional and being genuinely curious in how their day is. Or taking time between sending emails that day to curiously explore how you're feeling in the moment, what are you hearing, what can you smell, in order to practice mindfulness. You'll just end the day feeling good. See how it goes
A couple of months ago I had a six month checkup at work, where you review your progress and review what you've done in the last couple months, decisions you've made in the interest of your career growth, and what are you plans and career goals for the next 6 months, 1 year, 3 years etc and the steps you plan to take. We have these questions in the form of a word document template which you're supposed to print out, fill out, and take to the meeting to discuss with your manager. I did this, and took it to the meeting. I was sitting in front of my manager, Hussain, and he says "Ok Mitchell, take it away." As I'm about to open my mouth, I realized, wait, this is all bullshit. I've only written things on here that I know he would want to hear (or at least I think he would want to hear), and if I'm honest with myself, I actually don't make decisions based on an identity (e.g. Senior business analyst).. I don't even have an identity of myself as wanting to be a certain person or role in 6months time, let alone work at this company in 6 months time. So, instead of talking through the document, I said "Hey Hussain, I want to be honest with you. This form is actually inaccurate. I make my decisions now based on my values." And then I pulled out a pen and drew a mind map on the back of the paper with my core values I'm currently living by and have been in the last 3 months - presence, creator, curiosity, honestly, playfulness, courage, order. And I then walked through examples of the decisions I made in the last 3 months which had been based on those values. A few examples:
- Several months ago I was a business analyst in a team working on CMS websites. There was an opening in a team for a business analyst for mobile projects. I expressed my interest to my manager as well as the general manager of the company at the time, both of whom discouraged me a lot from moving, saying that I'm now in a position with the current team to take on more responsibility and would be a quicker route to being a Senior Business Analyst. I decided, however, based on my values of honesty, that if I was being honest with myself, I felt I wanted a change of scenery and decided to move anyway. This happened to be one of the best decisions I've made whilst working at this company because I love the new environment, team, and projects I'm on. I personally feel diversity of experience has actually moved me closer to becoming a Senior Business Analyst, and am now much closer to it than if I had stayed in the old team and listened to the higher-ups.
- I was asked by a friend to give a talk at a conference in Australia coming up this December on a subject I wasn't too familiar with. I felt nervous and my initial thought was 'hell no', but I realized the nerves was just because I had never done something like that before in front of so many people, which meant I needed to do it. Also, if I was to live by the value of courage, I would give the talk in December, so I agreed. Despite not having even given the talk yet, the learnings from the preparation has allowed me to apply a new process to the way our team builds mobile applications, and have felt growth in both myself, my friend, and the team.
Afterwards, Hussain thanked me for being honest and having the courage to lead the conversation in a much different direction that noone had taken it before. The result of that was that he wants me to be responsible for reassessing our team values and create a promotional brochure that we'll use to communicate to our clients. So by me living by my values, I'm able to have so much more of an effect on other people and it makes me feel really good. I love that quote by Jim Carrey, "The most valuable currency in this world is the effect you have on other people", and I feel that when we are living by our values and expressing and taking action based on our values, this is like the real true gold. When we live based on fear, everything we say, our relationships and the results we get are just fake, and we don't have the effect we were meant to have on people. I encourage you to ask yourself, how would I live by my values in this moment? Even if you just pick one value, like curiosity, or honesty, and look for opportunities throughout the day to live by that value. e.g. 'Curiosity Mondays'. Whether it be talking to a cashier but going beyond the transactional and being genuinely curious in how their day is. Or taking time between sending emails that day to curiously explore how you're feeling in the moment, what are you hearing, what can you smell, in order to practice mindfulness. You'll just end the day feeling good. See how it goes