Thursday, July 31, 2008

It is the Values Which Bind

Recently we had a two-day Workshop where people from all our offices came to discuss the Vision, Mission, Values, Culture and Objectives of MILAGROW.

We spent enormous time in discussing each and every aspect and settled each point. We agreed to the following Values:

Ethics - Integrity, Honesty and Transparency in what we do
Commitment - Own everything we do
Trust - Believe in People
Respect - All Stake Holders

Every person made his/her own commitment to each and every value. Its been a much change since then – I can see that every person’s commitment and effectiveness has gone up a few notches from the already high levels which they demonstrated.

The magic lies in the “VALUES” which bind the people and everyone now sees the 'larger purpose' and the magic has just begun!


My gratitude to all my people to make me learn this lesson firsthand though I always knew the phrase “It’s the Values which bind”!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alas the society at large is doing a pretty bad job at these values......

Anonymous said...

Pick any organization and you will find most have these values in their books which you described. "Candor" is the single most important value which can help an organization use its human asset most effectively. Without Candor, there cannot be trust, teamwork and creativity which is mostly missing in the knowledge industry.

Tejinder Kainth
Toronto

Anonymous said...

We have been using the word "Values" quiet flexibly for some time now, in business requirements it can be easily squeezed to churn out profits, while in relationships it can easily be blotted to make them win! Values is it a virtue?

Arun Kumar said...

Cool Initiative; if it was an outdoor workshop I guess it would have been a ball of good time.

Many organizations write there values which are not at all inherent to them and if a 3rd party survey or deep study of the organization is done totally different values emerges out, its like should-have-value against but-we-are-values.

When I think of getting values incorporated I think of two ways
 Democratic make-up way
Identifying real personal values of each individual (which is in itself a difficult task, I guess) and cumulating and counting those values which takes top 5 positions.

Our values are no different then who we are, each and every one of us carries unique set of values, our family has sets of values to which all the family members abide our cities have values (if you happen to visit different cities you might find subtle difference) Even our country exhibits values which encompasses to each and everyone’s life and business at large.

 Induced Environment
This is the way visionary companies go ahead with as mention in book “Build to last” by James Collins; in this way forerunners of the company list out the charter, create a culture and conducive environment in which complete organization from top to bottom rung gets moulded into a pre-set way of life or pre-set values in organization.

Now which is the best or which combo is better; go peter drucker way one which is effective and efficient.

Giri Vasan Guinness said...

I endorse the views of Mr.Arun Kumar. The Companies who live these values have seen so many life cycles and have stood the test of time. It is the Organization culture and the value system that has seen the Company through for decades.

It is very very important for the Organization to be a learning Organization and when the values are lived it becomes the culture of the Company. We often talk about bad culture in various Organization but often fail to recognize the great culture certain organizations demonstrate.

As rightly mentioned in Built To Last the Companies who have built this culture are enjoying the fruits.

Mr.Arun Kumar may also note that Built to Last also talks about being effective and efficient in the operations and visionary in the long run.

If you need to attract and retain good talent money alone is not sufficient.

T.C. Girivasan

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I was reading ur blog posts and found some of them to be very good.. u write well.. Why don't you popularize it more.. ur posts on ur blog ‘Rajeev Karwal expresses Gratitude to his 'Teachers'’ took my particular attention as some of them are interesting topics of mine too;

BTW I help out some ex-IIMA guys who with another batch mate run www.rambhai.com where you can post links to your most loved blog-posts. Rambhai was the chaiwala at IIMA and it is a site where users can themselves share links to blog posts etc and other can find and vote on them. The best make it to the homepage!

This way you can reach out to rambhai readers some of whom could become your ardent fans.. who knows.. :)

Cheers,

lifexcels@gmail.com said...

A Sincere Meaningful Wish, A Sincere Meaningful Hope, A Sincere Meaningful Manifestation;  
Eradication & Resourcefully Effective Management of Global Hunger and Malnutrition
 
Are you Aware
 
Hunger and malnutrition kill a child every 4 seconds
 
I was very much shocked and still shocked whilst compiling these few words very sadly and with extreme concern when I came to know of this a short while ago
 
(A lot can be spoken, but what is done meaningfully is what matters and although a lot of meaningful actions are being taken, these very much need the continual and effective participation of Millions of People World Wide since this is an critical aspect of alarming proportions that needs to be effectively and resourcefully managed / very carefully controlled)

Continued (Please visit the following hyperlink)

http://hungerandmalnutrition.wordpress.com/
 
With Sincere Hopes and Thoughts for an Effective Resolution to resourcefully counteract and enable an effective management of this Critical Challenge Globally,

Vashi Ram Chandi