There has been a global storm off late which has been bringing in it’s wake a gamut of emotions but I am grateful for the rustling autumn leaves which have been cushioning the soles of my sometimes shaky feet. The leaves layer on layer, stretching out like a carpet of colours before me in the nature reserve I am grateful to live next to, seem to provide a sense of solidity, grounding, and of being together with nature as one.
Nature has been a source of immense comfort and the recent festive vibe has been heartwarming too! I enjoyed our family Diwali celebration recently – an important festival for some of us of South Asian heritage. Diwali is often called the ‘festival of lights’. Over and beyond being an excuse to connect friends and family over delicious foods, arts and adorn some sparkly festive gear, it is a day that symbolises togetherness, and acts as a unifier of communities. It is a day when year after year, we come together and reaffirm the age old values of kindness over injustice, of good over bad. This Diwali I have been reflecting on how important coming together and reaffirming our values and what we believe in really is both personally at a human level, but also at an organisational level, in our work spaces.
Over the years, I have worked with a number of private sector organisations and charities to support the development of their ethos. I have observed a core common thread.
The organisations that are able to really shake up the status quo, are those that hold their values quite firmly at their core.
As organisations grow and go through immense change, while they may continue to make a difference in their communities, inevitably their people, old and new often end up on different trajectories. The belief systems sometimes run tangential, the agendas are sometimes quite visibly at conflict. Often even the most well-meaning get stuck in the mindset of ‘helping is necessary and should go on!’ At the same time, there are so many other questions to be asked, ‘at what cost?’, ‘are we the right people?’, ‘are we hurting more than helping?’ ‘ are there other bits we should be helping with instead?’ In times when progressive charities begin to ask themselves the tough questions of ‘how they really make a lasting impact on communities and get themselves out of business’ or ‘how they redefine what their business really is’, the rubber really starts to hit the road. Unifying the organisation and people around a common vision and values emerges almost as a necessity, more than just a good idea.
Unless we come together and begin to really unpack our values and how we move forward together, evolving our philosophy and coalescing our energies around a shared agenda feels impossible, no matter how well meaning or passionate our team or colleagues might be. It has been said, ‘repeat anything often enough and it will become you’.
There’s always room for organisations to repeat their values and not just as a string of words, but as a shared essence that everyone embeds, internalises and relates to at a deeper level.
Fleshing out how we manifest and live our values day in and day out through our person, work and in different parts of our organisation can help to activate and demystify the values, make them real and bring collective strength. If the strategy is a map that guides the organisation from origin to destination, the values are what fuels the vehicle that makes the journey happen, and in a way that feels spirited and together.
So really whether it’s seasons that bring us together in experiencing wonders of nature, celebrations that bring us closer as a community, or values that unify and motivate organisations and individuals towards their goals, the spirit of togetherness lives on giving us shared meaning and purpose, even in the most turbulent of times.
