Gather At The Well: Operationalizing Your Values - Lindsey Fuller

This episode of Gather At The Well focuses on operationalizing your values - making sure your stated beliefs are actually reflected in your policies and practices. 👀 

Lindsey shares examples of how to do this, like designing hiring processes and bereavement policies aligned with your values. She’ll also walk you through an exercise to help you identify your top personal and professional values, and figure out where they may be missing from your current systems. Because living your values, not just stating them, is crucial for building a healthy, sustainable workplace culture.

Episode Highlights

• Tone-Setting + The Case for Operationalizing Your Values (2:00)
• "Dots and Squeezes" somatic exercise (6:00)
• The importance of aligning values when designing co-leadership models (12:00)
• Examples of how values can be infused into organizational systems, policies, and practices (19:00)
• Exercise to identify your 3-5 personal and professional values (23:00)
• Reflection on where your values may be missing and how to bring them into alignment (27:00)
• Critical Hope: Fight for your values. They’re worth it. (33:30)
  
  

For more information + episode details visit weareforgood.com/episode/operationalizing-your-values.

Chapters

• 0:02 Operationalizing Values for Workplace Wellness
• 15:01 Living Your Values at Work
• 34:05 Empowering Organizational Culture for Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

I'm Lindsay and it's time to gather at the well. We're on a mission to microdose wellness, create human-centered systems and retain our greatest asset our people. We believe it's time for podcasts that teach moving beyond thought leadership and towards change leadership. Join us and our friends at we Are For good as we model the way with concrete examples from the field and gain tangible tools, because it's possible to build adult work cultures. We don't need to heal from. Let's get into it. All right, y'all, welcome back. It's episode three of Gather at the Well. We are so excited you came back to play.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Some of the ingredients in a recipe for a healthy professional culture that we've been exploring in our first two episodes are really how to normalize wellness. What does it mean to encourage your team to be identity forward with that professional authenticity? How do we balance self and collective care? We even dove into the idea of community agreements as guardrails for the types of interactions that can retain us. And today we'll be talking about another key ingredient operationalizing your values. Making sure that what you state you're about you're actually about okay, because your policies impact your values. Making sure that what you state you're about you're actually about okay, because your policies impact your people and because many of us get the ick or distance ourselves from some of our responsibility, which is probably a sign, friend, that your values and duties are in disharmony. Just saying so, let's see what's up. That level of alignment between beliefs and actions, I guess it makes an organization stand out. You're going to recruit the best talent that'll drive results. You're going to get greater satisfaction and retention for your incredible staff. You know what I'm talking about. It's like you've probably done one of those activities where you identify your core values. We see them all over the place. At the Teaching Wall, we often help our clients do that work, identifying their core beliefs and guiding principles, not only as individuals but as a team. It can be challenging because you have to keep funneling them down and it feels like you're releasing little parts of yourself. But these exercises for an organization are really critical.

Speaker 1: 2:34

I have a lot of core values. I got a whole shopping list of them. I love some values. I'm a value forward type of girl, but my top five, the non-negotiables, the ones that keep me up at night or let me sleep in in the morning, the ones that build a fire in my belly and the ones that I pray I've shared with my daughters before my life's end, I guess, are family, faith, loyalty, liberation and integrity. So today I'm going to play with you on that last one.

Speaker 1: 3:09

I want to talk about how to gain deeper clarity on which of your core values interfaces most with your professional life, and then to consider how you might systematize or operationalize that value to help you as the leader or the team or the organization that you want to be, and to make those processes more frictionless. You might be like Lindsay how does that even connect with microdosing, wellness or workplace well-being? When I think about policies and practices as touch points okay, these are places that the institution, your nonprofit, your school, your district has these touch points with staff I get curious, right, because they reflect your expectations and your intent as an employer. Are those touches safe? Are they cold, are they nurturing and warm, or do they leave bruises? So when you invest in operationalizing your values, here's some of the ways that you will be more well, as will your workplace. At the interpersonal level, you'll be protecting your peace, you'll reduce your rumination and trust into your intuition. You'll be able to innovate and lead in more transformative ways. Interpersonally, you'll be modeling the way, giving others permission and encouragement to live into their professional authenticity, creating more emotional and mental sustainability for them. Because, let's get real, when we feel like we're out of touch with our values personally, or if we're anxious that we're not living into the values that are expected by the team or organization, we have doubt, we over-explain, we undervalue our own wisdom. You hired these people for a reason, so guide them to their greatness. At the systems level. You'll even be more likely to implement those org policies and practices with fidelity, with consistency, with fairness. Some of the essential elements to providing healing-centered containers, especially for trauma survivors on your team and, yeah, you have at least one, whether you know it or not is to let their nervous system rest in your leadership and in your systems. Those teammates are craving consistency and predictability and caring relationships, and it's your job to create those conditions. You've hired a diverse team and now it's time to retain and sustain them.

Speaker 1: 6:01

You may be listening to this opening and being like, oh snap, I don't know if I do that or all right, I believe you, but how and when it feels like that, when you're in that uncertainty, when you're not sure if you can pull it off, or when you have a new way of being mirrored to you. It can feel anxiety provoking. So a natural way we sometimes process anxiety is by wringing our hands. So I want to usher you through a somatic called Dots and Squeezes that we love at the Teaching Well, to bring more mindfulness to quiet the hands and to tend to them. To quiet the hands and to tend to them. To do this you might start on one side by taking your thumb and your pointer finger to make a little pincher and to visualize or just sense into several locations on the palm of your hand that feel tight, that you're experiencing pain in and you just kind of want to apply some pressure, little squeezes, on those dots. Like I was telling a group this morning, I like to visualize and bedazzle my dots and count 10 discrete locations with all of these nerve endings, to just slow down, to pause, take a deep breath here, in through the nose and out through the mouth, and when you feel ready you might move to the fingers. That's the squeeze part of this practice dots and squeezes and to do this you might tug or pull, squeeze or rotate each of your fingers through your other palm. You might focus on the nail beds or even continue, if you liked, the dots sensation, starting near the palm and working towards the fingertips. Let's move to the other side, tending to the other palm, applying some pressure to those dots and combating the urge to wring your hands and instead being more mindful. Your hands are working hard for you and you are working hard, you, beautiful human, so treat yourself. Move to the squeezes All those fingers and take another deep breath. All right, so when I think about operationalizing your values and infusing them into org structures, I think about saving time, effort and your brilliance. You're making it easier for your colleagues and yourself to show up in your gifts and get a stamp of certainty from external parties like clients, partners, even auditors.

Speaker 1: 9:11

Recently I was at a conference for grant makers in education. It was dope, as I co-presented with a board member and funder, dana shout out, dana. We talked about look fors in a nonprofit or school or district partner that would indicate to a funder that they are worth investing in for an innovative initiative that maybe falls outside of their typical portfolio. There were four look fors. Of course, you can guess they expect those nonprofits or those school partners to be data-driven and have demonstrated success. But do you know the top two look-fors that were shared from this room of funders. The first was values alignment between the two orgs, meaning the foundation and the nonprofit share at least some values, for example, and the other was stability and credibility of the organization's leader. Hello, are they calling our bluff? Are we about what we say? We are being on brand with your mission, vision and, yes, your values. That's good for business, and it's not just good for external business.

Speaker 1: 10:24

If you don't believe me, ask your team which policies and systems do you uphold and implement with the most fidelity? Really create space for them. To give you some feedback, give a 360 survey. I bet you some of the policies that feel most human, centered to your staff, closely aligned with your personal values and beliefs as a leader. You're already implementing them with greater ease and consistency because they're second nature to you. So why not design systems with that in mind from the get-go? If you see the success and sustainability that's possible when you operationalize a value, why wouldn't you use this to redesign more of your systems?

Speaker 1: 11:13

One of the prerequisite skills for acting in alignment with your values is being able to tap into your intuition, that internal compass that guides you even when it feels like you aren't sure what direction to go in. I don't know about you, but I feel like I make tons of decisions every day in my job. I'm sure you do too. Sometimes we just have to feel into our core beliefs. So I know we just did a somatic, but actually I'm feeling inspired maybe to dabble here a little bit in some deep belly breathing to see if we can create more space for our intuition, which you sense into via your gut Usually. Let's see if we can make a little bit more space. So I'm going to invite in three deep breaths, and probably nobody's looking at you. So the real explicit direction is can you let your belly completely hang loose, just fully loosen your core, taking in these deep breaths the first begin. Deep breaths, the first begin and as you exhale, noticing how much space and expansion you can build, your chest rises, your belly moves. You have space for your intuition to really take up its fullness. Another breath here and one more. You have to trust your intuition and your intuition's fuel comes from your core beliefs. And your intuition's fuel comes from your core beliefs, one sustainability and retention move that we've been noticing at the Teaching Well, occurring across organizations and I think it's an attempt to build leadership structures that share the blessings and the burdens of enormous roles are co-leadership models.

Speaker 1: 13:26

Check out this potential pitfall, though. So I thought about this because when I want to bring about workplace wellbeing, I want to have a leadership team. I want to remove isolation. I want to say not all the pressure is on you to externalize your values. Not all the pressure is on you to externalize your values. So, hypothetically, think about two co-CEOs in a nonprofit, for example One wants limited board involvement because they value independence or autonomy that's one of their core beliefs and one wants an evaluation system for these leadership roles because they value integrity or accountability.

Speaker 1: 14:10

If values aren't a part of the exploration as you attempt to resolve this misalignment, you're clashing without context. There are gaping holes in this conversation. What is perceived just as a rupture between two leaders trying to figure out this interdependent model. Well, the truth is you aren't going to align and even if you eventually do, you'll be exhausted and disconnected by the time you land. You'll ruminate in between, you'll second guess yourself, you'll dump your troubles on your loved ones, filling every kicket and date night or outing with these trials. It will push you into fatigue and maybe even burnout Just trying to navigate a structure that's supposed to bring greater ease, collaboration and sustainability.

Speaker 1: 15:01

So values matter when it comes to workplace well-being, both at the individual and interpersonal level, and the gap is often revealed when systems or practices are clashing with those values. Don't keep your values hidden in the shadows, especially if you're designing a co-leadership model. So what's possible? On the other side, when I use my intuition and I tap in with my co-executive leader, marisol, we get excited to bring liberatory design to life and actualize change. So I wanted to drop just a couple of examples of what this could look like when your values intersect on purpose with systems, policies or practices.

Speaker 1: 15:49

When I think about a system for hiring at the teaching, well, we navigate our hiring process by being very intentional about the breaks across the school year. Why? Because 100% of our staff are former educators, so we don't want to poach from the very source that we're trying to heal. We list the roles during winter break, we interview during spring breaks and we onboard in June, after the last day of school, because it's really key that we aren't destabilizing their school environment. In other words, we do our best to avoid contributing to the very staffing instability we're working to solve.

Speaker 1: 16:33

When I think about policies and really thinking about how our values would show up. To make it an easy yes, even when there's no convenient time for someone to leave work, we think about our bereavement policies and check out that episode. I believe it was the second interview with John and Becky on we Are For Good. I talk a lot about our bereavement policy and the battle I've had with watching inhumane policies be put in place, like forcing folks to bring obituaries to prove that they were at a loved one's funeral. But even since that episode, we further revised our bereavement policy to include reproductive loss. It's confusing to me, and beyond that, it's inhumane, that with as many working women as we have and birthing people in our communities, they're expected to use PTO the very source that is pulled from for vacations to also grieve a reproductive loss. That should be folded into your bereavement policy and Marisol and I identified that as a gap. As a way we could be further liberatory, as a way we could live our vitality and wellness value at the teaching well. Our collective liberation value at the teaching well. Our healing value at the teaching well.

Speaker 1: 17:57

And finally, a practice how could a leadership practice intersect with our values? Well, and some of y'all don't think we're nuts for this, but we don't build curriculum if we do not live it internally. If you knew the amount of requests, for example, over the last couple of years, that folks have asked like how do you build a culture of feedback in an organization? Can the teaching? Well, come in and train us. That's a delicate process and while we had an absolute, healthy culture of affirmation and appreciation in the teaching, well, peer-to-peer feedback that didn't involve supervisors or leaders was a growth edge. And so we're spending all year in internal PD, once a month for multiple hours, studying ourselves and best practices for cultivating a culture of feedback, and at the end we'll be a stronger team. But also we'll have tools, resources, curriculum, trainings, coaching modules for our clients and, most importantly, we'll have the credibility to say we're not in here preaching what we don't practice. What a relief.

Speaker 1: 19:12

I hope those examples make you feel a little bit like this is accessible to me, like, okay, I could find some ways for the org values or mine to show up. But just in case you're still curved over, feeling nervous, not sure if you can pull it off, let's roll our shoulders back five times. Slow down, open up your chest. You've got this. Take another noisy breath here. Oh so I guess I'm asking you why are values on your website if they aren't in your daily experience website, if they aren't in your daily experience? I often ask my staff what is the teaching well, experience for clients, what are partners experience with your organization? And if they were to evaluate your values alignment would they say, yeah, when we go to the website we see that list. They're listening, they're acting, they're making change, they're living their values.

Speaker 1: 20:31

What's the cost, though? What's the cost of working in an organization where your personal or your professional values are constantly being negated or confronted? It's that lack of motivation, it's feeling disconnected from team or from the mission and, frankly, it can feel like you're overextending or compromising your beliefs, like you're abandoning yourself, you're handing over, perhaps, your agency or you're acting in ways that you're not proud of your agency or you're acting in ways that you're not proud of, and that type of self-doubt can very quickly evolve into phenomenon like imposter syndrome or hosting a self-critic within yourself that is so intense that you begin to chip away at yourself. I lost myself during my burnout journey and a part of the way that I've been able to find myself again, find my way back to waking up every day and loving my job, loving who I work with and knowing really truly understanding that the grass ain't greener. You typically will not find an organization that meets every need, but if you can find an organization that's living their values, where some of your core beliefs can also be acted on every day, where you feel interpersonal connection with colleagues who mean it, who get it, who make the change like Michelle Obama said who do something, those are some of the cornerstones of a healthy professional culture.

Speaker 1: 22:18

So let me walk y'all through a little activity. Are you down to try this exercise with me? Because I don't want to make the assumption that you have externalized your values. You might pause throughout this exercise, literally pause this podcast, note the time stamp and hop back in after each portion. Or if you are running out of time because you need to run to that next meeting, this might be a natural juncture to return to later. Or maybe you just want to listen in and percolate until your next pause or journaling session. But don't clutter your tabs. For me, really, close this tab when you have to transition to the next thing. If that helps lighten your mental load.

Speaker 1: 23:05

I'll be here if you want to come back to finish, but in that spirit, just in case, this is the only time you have to give to this reflection, let's explore what are your top three to five values, and undoubtedly some of them won't be the values that always show up at work. Right, I named for y'all. One of my first ones is family. If you have more time, you might even pause and go over to the Teaching Wells blog for a longer list of our values, but if this is your window to work on this, or if you're driving, it's okay to even say the values out loud to yourself or jot them down. What are your top three to five values? Some of y'all are feeling stuck because you're overthinking. Please compost perfectionism and just play. It's not like you're about to get these tattooed. Okay, you can always revise them later. Write down three max five. Okay, now sit back and look at them, would you do? Maybe circle the one or the ones you think show up at work most.

Speaker 1: 24:45

In my list, integrity was the one that felt like should show up at work every day, in every decision, and if you're in motion or in the car, just say one out loud. That feels like it intersects with your professional domain. We're going to narrow just to one for the sake of this exercise. Ask yourself how does this show up in my leadership, in my professionalism, in my communication or my behaviors at work? How does it show up If a newscaster was interviewing you or conducting an observation for a story? What would they see and be able to describe?

Speaker 1: 25:36

Can you feel that value living in your actions, in your practices, in the systems that you lead? Ooh, you know what? Let's make it a somatic Little freestyle here. Where does this value live in my body? My thinking is that if we can start to feel into the value, we'll notice it and act on it more. So, maybe getting comfortable in your seat If driving, you might just gaze off to the horizon, you can be still or gently sway, you can also practice dots and squeezes. Again, while we do this, let's just do a little body scan, imagining that you have a ring of awareness hovering just above your head and, just like when you walk through the scanner at the airport, you want to have that awareness kind of cascade down the body, starting at the crown of your head.

Speaker 1: 26:47

Your values probably don't just live in your mind, are they at the tip of your tongue. Maybe it's justice and you feel the burn in your belly. Or your core value is consistency and your feet feel heavy and rooted into the ground. Maybe it's a joy and you feel your cheeks loading, staying ready for that next cackle. Where are you storing that core value? Take a deep breath here, because that location is where you can tap in and access when you need it. Next, give it a little bit of gratitude to it while you're visiting, and then come on back to me.

Speaker 1: 27:54

All right, so we've thought about examples of where it shows up and also where your inner source resides. Now what? Where do you want to see more of it? Where is that value missing? What's a system where you feel dis-ease? You're like, no, this again, I have to enforce this policy. Or maybe you're not the CEO, you're not the executive director, you're a teammate, and every time you have that touch point and supervision with your evaluation system, you leave feeling like less. You leave feeling like less. It's not a pour-in opportunity where you feel embodied and excited to grow valued, but instead you feel disconnected, disillusioned, frustrated or greater worry.

Speaker 1: 28:41

This will take practice, but if you can narrow a value and engage in a reflective inquiry. This is the pre-work to human-centered system design. Bringing that intention is going to increase your well-being and the well-being of others. This is the homework, the quiz before you build the test. And yeah, your credibility don't forget that perk is also enhanced when you live that value. Your credibility don't forget that perk is also enhanced when you live that value. For the record, if that value that makes you you professionally is a value that maximizes returns by any means necessary.

Speaker 1: 29:17

I mean, like you drain your staff until they're depleted and then replace them, I'm not talking to you. I will talk to you offline, but I'm not encouraging you to operationalize values of exploitation. Don't misuse the podcast. Gather at the well does not endorse oppression. I'm advocating for human centered systems and healing centered practices. I'm talking about the values that reflect your better nature, the pro social leader we need you to be. So if you did that exercise and you brought out some of the dark side, I want you to go back in there and figure out how you can get to the light of liberation. And I made that sound really simple. This is some of us, our life work. For some of us it takes coaching or working with a consultant, setting goals and practicing over time.

Speaker 1: 30:13

I just want to lift a couple of caveats, because planning for values alignment is key, but it won't solve all your problems. First of all, not every teammate is willing or able to do the work of operationalizing values. It isn't their ministry. Or even if they are willing to put in the work, it might come at too great a cost to colleagues or the organization as a whole to figure out how they can live into their values consistently. Go back to that second episode. But it turns out there is a threshold, a too much out of balance of self and collective needs. Also, not every interpersonal challenge is solvable. Sometimes colleagues won't get close. Not all of them will vibe.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Your culture isn't crumbling and you're not phony with the stated values. It's just that those folks aren't compatible. So how do they coexist? Don't force it. Your job is to steward collaboration. Also, not every human-centered system will catch every human and center them in ways that you or they want.

Speaker 1: 31:17

Nothing can be everything, not for everyone every time. That doesn't mean you're failing as a leader. You just don't have that much control over the universe, friend. You create the conditions, you usher in the vision, you provide the guardrails and the cheerleading and the support. But life will life. That's one thing we can count on. This is a marathon and not a sprint. It's taken hundreds of years of work, not working for society. It's going to take you a minute to heal up the professional sphere. So I'd like to guide us towards a couple of affirmations, mantras, inner narratives that can replace the self-doubt. Try them on with me or don't, that's your business. I can live my values at work. My intuition is powerful, our organizational culture can heal.

Speaker 1: 32:22

And for your homework, again, a little prompt. You might even need to take it to therapy with you. But reflect on an individual or interpersonal or systemic hurdle that you're facing, a disharmony or disconnect between you and another colleague. You're supposed to be collaborating on that project plan, writing that grant together, creating an innovative unit plan for the students that need it most, instead of giving up or leaving or refusing to partner, identify what the underlying values are for you, for that person, or perhaps the values that were embedded in the system when it was designed, especially if you inherited it and weren't the one that created it. Get curious, identify the value and figure out how you can bring your professional values or the new values of the team or org more closely into alignment with this practice or policy.

Speaker 1: 33:30

And to close with a little bit of critical hope fight for your values. They're worth it. Earn the trust of your team. Weather the storm. You will not win. All the time You'll fall and then get back up again and fight to do the right thing the next day being a liberatory leader, being a colleague that isn't canceling everyone, being a teammate that's trustworthy and, frankly, being a part of the solution to the attrition issue inside of your organization.

Speaker 1: 34:05

Building that adult culture you don't need to heal from requires that you remember your agency. It's your responsibility. You have power. Create systems and policies that work for you, not against you and your team. Keep going, you got this. We've made it till the end of this episode. I hope you're feeling encouraged and reflective and I especially hope that you'll come and play again for the fourth episode, where we'll be exploring living into DEIJ, figuring out how, when we recruit diverse teammates, we can retain and sustain them. How do we become an identity forward organization where folks experience the psychological safety and a culture of inclusion that combats attrition? We need to keep them y'allall. We'll get into it next time. Have a beautiful day. We'll see you soon, all right, y'all. Thanks for coming to play at gather at the well, the podcast that teaches. If you like this conversation, come visit us online at teachingwellorg and hit us up on our socials. Remember to visit the podcast page to download a couple of useful tools to get your life and heal up your work.