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The Solution

There are, however, ways to avoid these pitfalls. The first is simply to use as inclusive and participative a process as possible in formulating the organizational goals to begin with. The second is to seek the most inclusive, all-embracing values possible, while retaining "meaningful-ness." For example, simply to define "to seek excellence in everything" as an organizational value tends to lose "mean-ingfulness" and at the same time to exclude those of us who work hard but are not always "excellent" at everything we do. On the other hand, something such as "to value and support each other in our multiple roles as employees, indi­viduals, and family members" is easily seen as important and meaningful, while conflicting with few more specific values.

Since there can be (and are) sincerely-held yet conflicting values, we need a third principle to try to resolve these situations. This principle holds that where the contents of different values are incompatible With each other, seek to place the overriding value on a process by which both sets of values can be at least passively included. For example, being committed to an environment in which substantive, open, and civil dialogue can take place around such con­flicts could be the overriding value that builds bridges between the specific conflicting values.

Some Feasible Organizational Values

Now let's examine a list (suggestive, not by any means exhaustive) of some possible values to adopt and practice in organizational life. They all have one thing in common— they are all built around the fundamental practice of valuing people in human, absolute terms, going beyond their mere efficiency and competence. At the same time, it is easy to see how many of these would in fact enhance organizational effectiveness.

Respect and Regard. This simply means to not only respect others, but to hold them, as far as possible, in positive regard. This can be a choice and is not necessarily depen­dent on personal affinity. Each human being is a rather awesome aggregation of mind, body, heart, and soul, and thus is deserving of respect. By doing the work necessary to perceive another's talents and gifts, it also becomes fairly easy to find positive regard for them.

Growth and development of people. The organization can consider the professional and personal growth and devel­opment of its people as a core value. This fits in well with philosophies such as JIT and World-Class Manufacturing that place great value on education and training. Besides promoting the valuing of people, this has obvious benefits for organizational performance as well.

Placing value on true dialogue. Dialogue in this sense implies a true listening and sharing. It goes beyond just building a case and advocating for a given position. Dia­logue is based on the assumption that in all likelihood the other person has something of value to say, even if we cannot agree with it.
Understanding, accepting, and valuing different personal­ity types. There has been much research done to demon­strate tremendous variety in human personality "types," each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses. Different personality types approach and carry out work in profoundly different ways. Yet profound differences can foster conflict and the criticism that co-workers and subor­dinates are not sufficiently "like me." Gaining understand­ing in this area, through such instruments as the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, can help promote tolerance, accep­tance, and a heightened level of teamwork.

Valuing different life stages. Our culture tends to see human aging as a purely negative process. But Daniel Levinson pointed out in his book The Seasons of a Man's Life that personal growth is a lifelong process, with each stage building upon and enriching the ones before it [6].

Therefore people of different ages are generally also in different developmental stages, with each stage offering its own unique challenges, joys, and gifts. An organization can learn how to value youth for its strength and energy, age for its wisdom, and midlife for its generativity, and resist the common tendency to view older employees as "over the hill" and younger ones as ignorant and immature.

Acceptance of the whole person. Participative management concepts stress that production workers, for example, can contribute with their brains as well as their hands. This is of course true, and a step in the right direction. But an organization can also learn to value people in all of their different dimensions—body, mind, heart, spirit, etc. The communication of feeling—information as well as data— information can be accepted and accorded its proper role. This can actually be a great help in understanding the behaviors of co-workers since feelings and intuition have such a great imp act on action, even in supposedly "rational" groups like business organizations.

Commitment to have a beneficial impact on society. An organization can make this commitment and strive to keep it while remaining profitable. It can do its best to be a good corporate citizen, provide jobs, stable incomes and mean­ingful work, and promote continuing education. It can attempt to minimize the life turmoil caused by layoffs, plant closings, relocations, etc.

Building community. A community is the quintessential place in which each individual is accepted, faults and all, in which each individual is valued, in which people are more important in themselves than the task to be accom­plished. A business organization must of necessity by concerned with the tasks at hand, or it will not hold together as an entity. But perhaps an organization can take steps in this direction. There is a growing body of writing and practice on the subject of building community in the workplace [1].

To be Continued