I have made it to my personal mission to help Tribe Tampere build their mission, vision and values. We are vastly growing community, and we have a fucking awesome culture! There’s no doubt, that if this culture stays and lives, Tribe will be successful, whatever it does or where ever it goes. But how we make sure that it will last even after the founders have moved on and leaders has changed?

Ulla Kauppi has described the development of organizations culture to 3 different stages. In my mind we are somewhere between first and second phase, depending how we determine leaders. Problem is that we don’t recognize our culture, we don’t understand why we do what we do.

So, it needs to be understood and verbalized! We need to understand our culture and what drives it. In the begin we had our strategy lined up but it was never really understood or act upon. So, like in many company’s it came from the people that were in the most active and visible roles, from the leaders (phase 1).

So, to start this mission we go straight to the deep end and start with our values!

Here is groundwork/homework for strategy workshop part.1 VALUES. Its build from many different sources and its easily customizable, so feel free to you use it for training session, workshop, etc.!

 A) What are your values? Most of us don’t recognize our values and we don’t understand what’s most important to us. Instead, we focus on what our society, culture, and media values. So, if we truly want to find and recognize our organization’s values, we must first examine our owns. You cannot be part of something if there’s no you.

So before brainstorming your company’s values, we should take time to ourselves and find, what drives us? If you have never had this conversation with yourself, I got some questions to help. I also recommend googling “how to find your values” or something like that.
On both personal and professional levels, what do you care about most?

When have you felt most alive?

When you think your childhood, what comes to mind first?

What situations invoke the most intense emotions you’ve felt, both positively and negatively?

What stories inspire you?

 B) What are your company’s core values? Your organization’s values set the tone for your company’s culture, and they identify what your organization, as a whole, cares about. When this happens, people understand one another, everyone does the right things for the right reasons, and this serves a common purpose. Values alignment helps the organization as a whole to achieve its core mission.

Organizations values comes strongly from the leaders (with or without the title). That is the reason why we should understand our own values. While we can’t always make sure that each person’s values are perfectly aligned with the company’s, we should find the people that are most fitted to our culture. Here’s some question’s which helps you to recognize your organizations values.

What are the values/behavior of dream team member?

What are the values that you believe are most prevalent among your company’s good performers?

How people demonstrate these values every day?

Best memory associated to your company?

• What was happening to you?
• What did you feel?
• What values steered you at the time?

Worst memory associated to your company?

• What was happening to you?
• What did you feel?
• What values steered you at the time?