A521.5.4.RB_MilliganSteven

When deciding what values are important in your organizations, and then working to align those values with the lives of those that work with the organization, it is important to understand the differences between operational and espoused values, and how we can distinguish and possibly align both personal and corporate values.  We need to learn to make the espoused values, or the ones that we want to have in our lives, the operational values, or the ones that are actually a part of our lives.  We need to ask ourselves what is truly important within our own organization and then seek out employees that hold the same set of values.  If you are a stock trading firm and have your net profit at the most important goal in the company you then need to align your values to that goal and then be honest with people as they look to work for the company.  Being honest and up front with employees will help to weed out those whose values do not line up with those of the company.  If attempt to state one set of values as our core set and then actually implement another set we will fail.  Employees will see the inconsistencies and will leave. 

If we learn that our organization is lacking in values or lacking in implementing values we then need to work to reestablish them immediately.  A strong set of values gives us a banner to look to when problems arise and we are not sure how to react to them.  In the text Denning states, “Making values explicit was a first preparatory step.  Making the values operational comes through action” (Denning, 2011, p. 138).  Being able to align and implement values through action will then change the hearts and the minds of the people working there to become more in sync with the company.  Leaders must follow and adhere to these values if they want the rest of the company to follow along.  They can then use these experiences to create narratives and examples that can help members of the organization understand what the values are and why they exist.  Developing and implementing these values can help to create a community within the organization.
           In order to have a strong ethical community, you need to have three basic components; Denning discusses these throughout the text.  The first is trust.  He defines trust as, “the general expectation among members that their fellows will behave ethically toward them” (Denning, 2011, p. 132).  I know from experience, without trust in an organization bad things will happen quickly.  Whether the organization is selling cookies, cars, providing health services or saving lives, a level of trust is needed for that organization to run.  It is incredibly important for people to trust their leaders, in return, leaders should be able to trust members of their organization.  That reciprocated trust working as a two way street can make the work more effective, the product a higher quality and the workplace a friendlier environment. 

Loyalty is the second component.  Denning defines this as, “acceptance of the obligation to refrain from breaching one another’s trust and to fulfill the duties entailed by accepting that trust” (Denning, 2011, p. 132).  By being able to trust and take care of one another, we should not have to worry about loyalties.  If each person in the organization were to act in an ethical manner, there should be no reason to break that loyalty. Yet, if it is broken, the trust wanes and the organization begins to fall apart. 

The third component is solidarity.  This is “caring for other people’s interests and being ready to take action on behalf of others, even if it conflict with personal interests” (Denning, 2011, p. 132).  This is, in my opinion, one of the most important aspects of an ethical community.  The genuine desire to take care of one another, help them out when possible, and have the backs of the people you work with, defines leadership, friendship and a healthy work environment.  When you add trust and loyalty into that mix, you will have an organization that is a place people will want to work for a very long time and will want to invite their friends to be a part of.  Just like a shepherd, I would not want to introduce a wolf into the fold.  I would only want to bring the best of the best to be a part of the organization and would care greatly what happens in the flock. 

Each of these values easily applies to the Air Force.  As airmen, we exercise integrity, service and excellence.  We take care of one another and have a desire to see each other succeed.  I would argue, this takes place more often in a military work environment compared with a more competitive organization.  Yet, I find there is a lot of conflict between shops.  I see this usually as a lack of communication and an unwillingness to venture from the norm.  Because we are compartmentalize, there is little interact with many of the other agencies on the base, and it can be difficult to see them as part of the same family.  We often look at them as the drunk step uncle that no one likes.  We’ll help them out when absolutely necessary; however, we’re probably not going to jump at the chance to do so.  In contrast, we should look at other sections of the base as our favorite cousin.  We may not see them all the time, but we’re happy they are there and we will jump at the chance to help them out.  The difficult part about applying this, is that trust and loyalty comes from day to day interaction.  These take time to build up.  You need to be able to communicate with each other frequently and openly.  What you then ask of your airmen is that they exercise solidarity without the experience of building trust and loyalty.  This is how we often work in the Air Force.  You take care of each other knowing that sometimes what other sections will do may make you look bad, cause extra work, or even delay or fail the mission.  You do what you can to keep this from happening, because in reality, the mission is more important than feelings, trust and loyalty.  When lives are involved, sometimes you have to look past the infallibility of humans and just make it happen.  To mitigate this we can meet more often, get to know other sections and learn the work others are involved to build trust.

For example, an attempt to streamline our deployment process, we brought together key teams from around the base for a week long Tiger Team.  Our goal was to better understand and communicate the deployment process, while conceiving new ways to deploy in a moment’s notice.  In the end, we determined that processes did not need to change; however, we did learn a great deal about the amount of work involved in each of the different workshops around the base.  Our level of trust grew to a great degree, and when things get busy and we have to deploy hundreds of people and items of equipment in just a few days, we can now trust that each member is doing their part.  Through communication and a week’s worth of brainstorming we developed a level of cohesion and team solidarity that makes us want to work harder for each person we worked with. 

 References

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. San Fransisco: Josey-Bass.