Personal and Organizational Values:

What Counts Most?

Instructions:

Our values play a major role in the way we think and how we act. Some of the most common values we have raised with and that our organizations practice are on the next two pages. Read through the list, then select the top ten values that define you and how you behave (personal values) and the top ten values that define your organization and how it behaves (organizational  values). Note that we are asking no for what you or your organization espouse as the top values but what , in practice, you and the organization demonstrate at those top values. (You can define “your organization” as the organization you lead or the organization your immediate boss leads. Be clear, though, on which definition you are using as you complete the exercise.) Write these, in the spaces below, in priority order. The number “1” should be used for the most important value and the number “10” for the least important value in your top ten. Values may appear in both the personal and organizational lists if they belong there in your view. Feel free to add values of your own that fall in your top ten if they are not on the list below.

 

Personal Values                                                                   Organizational Values

(These Matter Most to Me)                                         (These Matter Most to My Organization)

1.__Trust________________________                   1.___Customer Focus____

2.__Diversity___________________                        2.__Structure_______________________

3.__Individual _______                                             3.__Effectiveness___________________

4.__Harmony____________________                     4.__Quantity________________________

5.___Learning___________________                      5.__Quality________________________

6.___Mercy____________________                         6.__Efficiency_____________________

7.___Timeliness _________________                       7.__Accountability__________________

8.___Accountabily _______________                        8.__Timeliness______________________

9.__Creativity___________________                         9.__Responsibility _________________

10.__Quality____________________                         10._Harmony______________________

 

When you have completed your “Top Ten” list, answer the questions on the last page of this exercise

 

PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES

Accountability           holding individuals and/or groups to account for their actions

Achievement              working for important things and feeling a sense of accomplishment

Community                stressing the importance of the group/organization and its needs

Creativity                   producing imaginative, original ideas

Customer Focus        placing importance on meeting the needs of internal and/or external customers

Diversity                     view differences among people and their ideas as an asset, not as a liability

Economic Security    knowing there will always be a job though the future is uncertain

Effectiveness              achieving the outcomes you seek from those you serve

Efficiency                   getting the most output from available resources

Equality                      ensuring all have the same rights, privileges, and opportunities to succeed

Freedom                     being able to express views, make choices, and take action without undue control

Harmony                    stressing agreement and good relations rather than blaming or fault finding

Individual                   stressing the importance of the individual and the individual’s needs

Justice                         upholding what is right and just

Learning                    gaining knowledge and applying it for the benefit of the self/others

Long Term                 acting with attention to long-term needs/goals even at the expense of short-term demands

Love                            intense feeling of caring and commitment for others

Loyalty                       fidelity/faithfulness to others

Mercy                         kindness and compassion beyond what is required or expected by fairness

Openness                    willingness to share information

Participation              willingness to include others in making decisions and solving problems

Quality                        doing things right the first time

Quantity                     turning out large volumes of work

Responsibility assuming obligations to discharge specific duties or trusts

Short Term                paying attention to crises and near term goals and needs

Status                          concern with place and prestige

Structure                    acting guided by a set of policies, rule, and/or procedures

Timeliness                  getting things done on time

Trust                           being able to believe in and count on others

Truth                          being honest even if it hurts

 Using your values sorts, answer the following questions in the space provided for each:

1. Are your top ten personal values and your top ten organizational values the same? If not, what are the major differences? What problems, if any, do these differences create for you as a leader? I believe the differences between my personal values and my organizational values are that my values are client centered while my organization’s values are customer service centered. My values focus on establishing a rapport and a relationship with the client through trustworthiness, individual consideration to the diverse and unique perspective that each client has on life, and on trying to make sure that my clients know that they matter, that we can see eye-to-eye, and that I can provide quality care in a timely manner by fulfilling my promises within the time frame that I assert I will. My organizational values are that they seek to be efficient, high volume producing, customer service focused, effective, and accountable. I think that what many organizations fail to realize is that in order to create a customer focused environment that a client centered relationship through rapport and trust must be established; this done by interaction and time at the bedside. As a leader, these problems must be reconciled and balanced, for the organization has expectations of job satisfaction based on their values, while the nurse has ethical and moral obligations to the clients based on his or her values, and the clients themselves have their own perspective on what values they hold as important to their care.
2. Are there some values on your personal values list that conflict with each other? For example, are there conflicts because you value economic security and freedom? Loyalty and truth? How can you address and resolve these value conflicts? I do not believe that any of my values are in conflict. But diversity and individual may seem a bit of a contradiction on face value, however, the individual is a diverse combination of experiences, values, morals, and life stories that speaks the need to understand an individual in order to be conscientious of diversity in the world at large.The first value that I put on my organization list is customer focus. I believe that it contradicts several of the other values, including effectiveness, quality, quantity, timeliness, harmony, and structure. The customer has a completely different set of expectations and ideals on what is important to them during their stay in the hospital. Often times they are self driven and speak to their own needs, such as pain medication administration and meeting their pain needs, noise levels, and how many times their call bell was pushed. Unfortunately, when a nurse is prioritizing and balancing 5-7 high acuity patients at any given time, then being customer focused on meeting the customer’s needs can overshadow effectiveness, quality, quantity, timeliness, harmony, and structure. Resolving these conflicts is a matter of having enough nurses and healthcare workers to be customer focused while maintaining the integrity of the other values.
3. Are there some values very important to you that you are not “living” in your day-to-day life? If so, what might you do to bring your life into concert with your most deeply held values? I believe that the value of timeliness is lacking in my personal life. Sometimes I just do not do things in the timeframe that I say I will or hope that I will, which can be very frustrating to other people and create a sense of unreliability over time. I used to be more punctual but considerably more high strung. As I age, my adherence to standards of timeliness has become more relaxed as I realize that some things are just out of my control,  and I cannot worry myself sick trying to do exactly everything I said I would do in the timeframe that I previously though appropriate. I believe that my inclination towards procrastination is compounded by the fact that I have to do things just right or they will never satisfy me, so doing things at the last minute means that it is now or never and I can't torture myself with mulling over every possible change or method of completing something. Creativity is another value that I think is not expressed enough in my day-to-day life. Being creativity requires a certain mood and ability to emote in my opinion. After a long day of working, school assignments, domestic duties, animal care,  and  just trying to maintain a social life of friends and family, the energy available for creativity is nonexistent. Nevertheless, the importance of creativity is integral to my own self-care and happiness; therefore, making time to be creativity and designating time to express myself whether it be on my day off when creating a planter or if it is ten minutes before I go to bed each night that I draw in my doodle book, the need is without a doubt important.