Regardless of the core values adopted in a healthcare organization, valuing others is vital as we represent an industry of healing arts, caring, and service to human beings. Valuing is the bedrock for core organizational values, just like trust is to integrity.
The valuing core competency must be grounded in order to build a solid foundation for cultural excellence. Valuing must be established to leverage the ability to connect with others. Valuing should be expected and easily identified by others. If you do not have positive valuing and live accordingly every day, the organization’s mission and vision reality will be at risk. This makes valuing a crucial priority for all leadership positions. Never underestimate the value of valuing people.
Aligning Personal and Corporate Values
The behavior of your colleagues – from the top executive to the front-line employee – reveals what values are being lived.
Leadership and governing boards have the responsibility of establishing and embracing values and expectations and must lead and mirror the values being lived within the organization. Values should intentionally be set by leadership and not taken for granted as a paper exercise. Values are vetted daily in organizations by people’s behavior. For example, people have to know the organization fosters and exhibits the core value of valuing in order to have effective communication and efficient day-to-day interactions.
Impact of Personal Values
Remember the impact of personal values on your organization. We cannot assume that honesty and integrity are part of a candidate’s personal values when recruiting top leadership and board members for organizations. A values assessment can be vital to the interview process for executive leadership, board members and for all employees to ensure personal values and the organizational values align. People can profess convincingly in interviewing opportunities that they have integrity, but their past and future actions and attitude may tell a more reliable story. As in everything, “Your walk talks louder than your talk talks”.
Values Frame Operations
A strategy for assessing a candidate’s “walk” for values alignment should be developed and applied before bringing new employees and soon-to-be colleagues into your organization. Consider ongoing review of these values with colleagues to ensure everyone remains on the same page. Core organizational values will frame the operations and daily functions and an annual evaluation of these values with colleagues is suggested to ensure everyone is living the values. Over time, values will rest in the subconscious state of the organization. Just like a human has subconscious values established by experience conditioning in their life, so too will a well-led organization.
