Values

In: Career, Values

Employer Values – When you look for the right job match you often consider the culture fit, but what about the value fit? An emerging term for recruitment organisations is Employee Value Proposition which captures more fully that total fit between what you stand for and what the organisation represents. Culture determines how work gets done, but values sets how a companies makes decisions, establishes priorities and represents deeper ethical qualities. “Ensuring that a company shares your values from the outset is a threefold process: First, you need to identify your own core values; next, ask the right questions during the interview process; and finally, conduct your own assessment to see if your values match those of the organization.” Kristi Hedges Divergent values may be minor and irritating such as an organisation that accepts meetings starting late if you value punctuality. Or the divergence could be more serious where yourContinue Reading

Inc. Macan Deve

In: Career, Strategic Mindset, Values

This article is based around an interview with Donna Hager, CEO and founder of architecture and engineering firm Macan Deve, she built her senior career as an VP engineer working for the world’s largest construction company and then she left. She started her company in 2015 based on some very different ideals, a construction engineering company owned by a woman, initially hiring senior people part time who didn’t want to retire. “I ended up hiring more senior people who didn’t want to retire, and I hired them part time, as needed. These were the smartest people I knew in engineering and infrastructure. I got great quality and we got little jobs. Finally, people were believing in us, and then I could hire some full-time people, and they got mentored by the more senior ones.”  Donna Hager The companies mission is to ‘eagerly explore new communities and different ways of thinking and beingContinue Reading

In: Career, Strategic Mindset, Values

Ikigai is a Japanese phrase that essentially defines your reason for being, it is the connection between doing what you love, what you value and what you are good at. Your Ikigai is not just about your career it is a more pure reflection of your sense of purpose and wellbeing. Numerous books have been written on the topic with many looking more holistically at why some Japanese who explicitly practice ‘ikigai’ are happier and live longer. Culturally in Japan the separation between making money and reason for being is important, and this coming from a country where people live for their company, a career is often with one organisation for life and they have a word for death by overwork (Karoshi). Ikigai does not specify as many representations show that the intersection between what you love, what you are good at AND what you can be paid for. BUTContinue Reading

In: Culture, Effective Communication, Leadership, Resilience, Values

Synopsis of an article in HBR by Michael Beer, Published 22nd June 2020 Michael explains that most organisations today are dealing with massive strategic challenges that require a redefinition of purpose, identity, strategy, business model and even structure. Many if not most of these will fail and not because the strategy if flawed but rather the organisation does not have the ability to execute. He explains that he has seen six common interrelated reason for failures, referred to as ‘hidden barriers’ which make organisations ineffective. Hidden barrier #1: Unclear values and conflicting priorities Often, the underlying problem is not this or that strategy, but rather the process by which the strategy was formed — or the lack of any such process. In these cases, strategy is often developed by the leader along with the chief strategy or marketing executive and only then communicated to the rest of the senior teamContinue Reading