Three acts of life are 1.Acheive 2.Connect 3. Integrate
Acheive is a natural act for a human being, it is all about being-by-doing
Connect is about relationships, or being-by-being-with. Sometimes people ignore relationships, but when there is a crisis what matters is the relationships i.e. people.
Integrate is being-by-becoming, means bringing first two acts together and also redefining your purpose and values, putting them in to action and making a difference to people around you.
Asking questions, like am I chasing my dream? or somebody else's?, am I doing what I have come to do? am I happy? to answer you need not look farther than where you are right now.
Fortune 500 companies will have to base the values and build four pillars on top of it, C= customers, E= employees, O= owners and S= significant others. you must build a sprit of shared responsibility and mutual trust among these key stakeholders to become a Fortune 500 company. So, when I look to join a company, I go around look for what values that company is preaching. Ken nicely ends the first chapter saying " Most important thing in one's life is to decide what is most important".
His one liners are thought provoking such as "Organizations do not make managing by values work, people do"
He details a process called MBV -
Phase 1- is to clarify the purpose, vision, mission and values.
Phase 2- is to communicate the above effectively to make every body understand.
Phase 3- is to align a company's daily practices with the said goals and values.
We also here loudly in change processes, in my earlier blogs I talked about creating a shared need and recognizing key stake holders.
In defining process ken advises the bottoms up approach to create values those to be adopted, this works well and brings a sense of belongingness. So in a company that truly manages by its values, there is only one boss, its values.
Communicating values to entire organization is not easy, because one must not only declare its core values, they must define operating principles, definitions. Leadership must walk the talk and show in every act of their life and reflect in every talk these values, then only employees believe and align them selves to core values. Alignment process is important that every conflict must be resolved through assessing the gaps in beahviours vis vis with the values. Genuine success does not come from proclaiming the values, but from consistently putting them unto daily action. When aligned around shared values and united in a common mission, ordinary people accomplish extraordinary results.
Ken advises to make environment safe to make communication easy and effective. Reflecting back on the journey at every stage and assessing employee, customer, stake holder and significant others feedbacks and putting them in to action, makes the journey a fruitful and enjoyable. As we always say either any change journey or imbibing values is a long drawn process, not just turning overnight. To take MBV journey, one must change personaly first and then embark on a organizational journey.
A Good read, helps you really improve what you do in your professional as well personnel lives.
