Module 2 – Lesson 4
In this lesson you’ll learn:
How to share the results of the COREvalues report with your team
Sharing the COREvalues report with your team
The COREvalues report is robust and detailed, and it includes action steps for your teams, but we find it best to start with explaining what core values are – and are not.
Preparing for the Team Meeting
1. Values drive what we do and why.
CORE values are personally held beliefs that reflect something of great worth to the individual. We strive for and protect the values, and we are willing to pay a price to obtain them. Core values are often gleaned from meaningful life experiences. They drive what we do, how we act, and guide our decisions.
2. Values are different from personalities.
Our personalities are often set at birth. While we learn to modify areas along the way, our personalities are essentially the same throughout our lives.
Where personality tells us how someone shows up, values tell us why. When you are trying to build an aligned, motivated, culture-driven team, knowing the why might be more important than knowing the how.
3. Values can create team strengthening connections.
When we learn about others’ values and the stories behind them, we come to understand and respect them in new ways. Our COREvalues report gives teams:
- A shared vocabulary to use to build deeper connection and greater understanding
- A chance to hear the stories that inspired their teammates’ COREvalues
- An opportunity to understand how each team member’s values complement the whole and contribute something meaningful to the team
- A starting point to address conflict that might arise due to differing values
Some final ideas about values:
All values come with a reason, a story.
Values can be innate (born this way), experiential (shaped by an experience), or aspirational (what we want to be).
The power comes in learning the innate, experiential, and aspirational values stories.
Here is a meeting outline that allows teams to interact with the report and each other:
Review Individual Values
Begin by reviewing each team member’s individual values report. Ask them to share a story behind some of their core values. Are they innate, experiential, or aspirational?
The leader’s goal is to listen attentively and get each member involved. You might consider the following:
- Ask each person if their values are innate, experiential, or aspirational.
- Ask if they can think of a story or experience from their life that might have shaped one of their values.
- Ask the rest of the team to share how they see these values play out in the person’s life.
- Point out connections, similarities, and areas of complement between team members.
Next, Review the Team’s Shared Values
These shared values reflect where the teams’ individual values overlap, where they are held in common.
- Do these values feel like a good fit for our team? What might we change?
- Where do my individual values overlap with the shared values?
- Where are my individual values different? What do I uniquely bring to this team?
Wrap Up With The Heatmap
COREstyles Overview
At the bottom of each individual values page is an assigned COREstylle, which is based upon the person’s top core values.
The COREvalues are organized within four quadrants: artistic, inspired, ethical, and productive. The quadrant with the highest number of your core values is your primary quadrant; the next highest is your secondary quadrant. Together, they make your Quadrant Blend, also known as your COREstyle.
Each quadrant asks a certain question. And while we all ask each of these questions, our COREstyle indicates which question we tend to ask first:
How can I best engage others to achieve our goal?
People in the Artistic Quadrant tend to think outside of the box and admire originality. They are drawn toward metaphors, allegories, and symbolic ways of communicating concepts and ideas. They are driven to make something out of nothing and to leave the world enriched by their work.
Artistic people are curious and love new experiences, new points of view, and new ways of seeing things. They often “connect the dots” in ways that others do not.
How can I optimize a process to achieve our goals?
Those who are in the Productive Quadrant are results-oriented and tend to look for ways to demonstrate or measure outcomes. They pride themselves on the slow, steady discipline that accomplishes great things. They are self-disciplined and independent; they don’t need the crack of the whip to keep them on task.
Productive people are self-correcting. They take criticism constructively and apply it. They pay attention to their own processes and try to refine them in order to be at their most productive.
What is the ideal in a situation and how do we reach it?
Individuals in the Inspired Quadrant desire a world as it should be, and they work to achieve that ideal. They want to leave the world a better place than they found it.
Those in the Inspired Quadrant are often spiritually driven. They are attracted to the transcendent – those qualities that are eternal and bigger than the individual.
They believe that life has a purpose higher than mere survival and that each human being has a purpose and a destiny to unlock. They have the courage to stand alone if necessary.
What are the best principles for this situation?
The Ethical Quadrant is comprised of those who are driven by doing the right thing. They act on principle and are guided by ethics and morality. They believe in shining a light on injustice and are driven to fight for those who cannot fight or speak for themselves.
For those in the Ethical Quadrant, their word is their bond. They are honest, even when it costs them personally to be so. They do the right thing even when no one is looking and do not take credit for other people’s work.
How Do Our COREstyles Work Together?
The heatmap helps you to understand the strengths of unity and diversity among your team.
First, understand what you are looking at:
- First, note the color code for each COREstyle. These colors indicate which quadrants this COREstyle reflects. You can then determine which questions this COREstyle asks first.
- The phrases along the sides help explain the “why” behind teammates with these COREstyles:
- Those at the top love change. They often are more comfortable with failure because they will simply try again with something new. They keep the team in a growth mindset – let’s try!
- Those at the bottom are great decision makers. They are very comfortable assessing the principles and the plan, then moving forward. They keep the team on track.
- Those on the left side love action. They want to do something, reflect on it, and then do something else. They help the team take ideas to implementation.
- Those on the right side love thinking. They want to consider the consequences and impacts of a goal before moving forward. They help the team cover all the bases.
- The COREstyles in the middle pull from opposite quadrants, which allows them to see a different picture. They bring balance and help the team stay unified.
Next, evaluate what this means for your team:
- Does our team cover all of the quadrants, or are we clustered around a few?
- What areas are the strongest? Does this work for our team?
- What might we want to consider if there are areas not represented, or repreprented by very few people?
- Where are we unified and how can we build on that?
- Where are we diversified and how can we build on that?
- How does seeing this heatmap help us better understand our team dynamics?
Continue to Use What You Have Learned
As you work as a team, continue to reflect on what you have learned about your team’s values, stories, and their COREstyles. Use this knowledge to enhance understanding and communication as you work toward your shared goals.
