Avoiding the Real Issue with Meanings and Values
I don’t have a television. I get my news online so I can filter what I want to read. I tend to avoid the hyped-up sensationalism that often accompanies headlines and front-line trending stories and read what really interests me. What does fascinate me is the way those stories are poised to pique our interest and how diversity, a quality of high-functioning teamwork and collaboration, can be polarized to create competing sides of good or bad or right or wrong.
We attach meanings and values onto everything we see, whether it’s a flag, the ways children are raised, whether or not everyone should exercise his or her right to vote, or an old family heirloom. And it’s not that we attach meanings onto things, though that’s a choice, and we need to recognize our intention and responsibility in the meanings that we do assign to those things.
Rather, our diversity, the differences that we have based on our past experiences, means that we will assign a wide variety of meanings to any one thing. You and I will see the same thing differently, and we will likely give it different meanings and values. In order to foster independence some parents will let their children walk home from school, while others encourage safety and pick the children up from school. Not good or bad or right or wrong.
In our work with organizations we embrace this diversity as a necessary quality of highly-functioning teams. For example, if we’re characterized by high decisiveness, we make decisions with little information and assume greater risk. On the other hand, if we are low, then we are prone to delay until we have enough information. And at the extremes people either make them blindly with significant risk or not at all because there is never enough data. Both have their reasons why. Not good or bad or right or wrong.
Because the real issue, what is true for us collectively, is that we’re both. I’m right for making a hasty decision and wrong for not taking more time to develop options. It’s just our individual meanings and values.
Our work with companies in Leadership Development involves three focuses:
1. Awareness: of myself, you, and our team. We are aware of our meanings and values, whether they be the same or in vast contrast to the other.
2. Appreciation: of myself, you, and our team. We are curious of that diversity and learn ways to leverage the difference and use it to the benefit of the team.
3. Holistic thinking. And this is likely the most challenging of the three: thinking not only just my thinking, but also thinking your thinking, too. When we take the time to think holistically we increase the probability of true collaboration and high-level teamwork.
Speaking of meaning and values, THEHABERGROUP in Cincinnati loves to advise and coach entrepreneurs, executives, individuals, companies, and nonprofits on leadership development and enhancing collaboration and teamwork through awareness and appreciation of our diversity. Invite us to connect on LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!