Mindset
What are your core values?
What does that question even mean really?
I’m not sure most people take the time to answer that question for themselves, perhaps until they are confronted with it in a business exercise or life coaching session.
It’s the background noise that informs how you feel when things don’t feel right. When you feel a sense of dissonance with others, or with your environment, it’s usually because something you value is being ignored or disrespected.
I was introduced to a definition of success by a friend, “Success is when your behaviors match your values”.
Do you deport yourself based on your core values?
I think part of the attraction to organized religion is that most of the religions over the history of humanity start with a moral and spiritual code of conduct. A character compass if you will.
The essence of religion is your accountability to something higher than you, something that reminds you of who you are, how you should carry yourself, how you should treat others, and what is considered reprehensible action or inaction.
But religion doesn’t necessarily ask you to evaluate your alignment with the values espoused within. Instead, most religions impart an expectation to align with the doctrine.
So how do we know what is most important to us, and how do we hold ourselves accountable to it?
One way to do it is to make a list of common values. Can’t think of any? The internet can give you a list with just a few clicks.
Take that list and ask yourself as you review it. Which ones resonate with you?
Build a list of 20-30 values that have meaning for you.
Then be ruthless about stripping it down to your most important ten. Those are the ones that cause havoc in you when they are not being respected, or there is misalignment with your environment or relationships.
The legendary coach of the Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr reflected on advice given to him by Coach Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks, himself a legend of college and professional football.
Steve admired the way Pete coached and how he established a team culture. Steve asked Pete some of his secrets for creating team culture. Pete told him that to create team culture he needed to pick 10 values that are important to him, and then narrow it down to his core 4 values.
Kerr settled on; Joy, Mindfulness, Compassion, and Competition.
When you define these words in action, you need to explore what they are and what they mean, and constantly revise and refine the actions that align with the words. What does it mean to be joyful? How does it look, feel, and exhibit itself?
What does mindfulness mean?
In the Netflix series “Last Dance” in one of the last episodes a sports psychologist remarked that what separated Michael Jordan from his peers was not his skills or on-court play, although incredible just the same. What separated him from all the rest was his presence. He was playing basketball, he was competing, he was on the court, in the game, all the time.
This is the essence of mindfulness. Being present and connected to one’s self, living in the moment undistracted by what has been or what will be.
How do you evaluate it in a team setting? Not easy, but recognizing when you are your teammates are not present and bringing them back to the task at hand is a big part of it. Holding yourself accountable and your teammates, this is how culture begins to thrive.
I think the idea of joy, mindfulness, compassion and competition invoke both a sensitivity to our fellow man and teammates, but also the essence of it all is to be competitive which infers a state of excellence.
Team success, if we take the definition of success I shared earlier as a reference point, is the ability of the collective to behave in alignment with these core values. Success is not the wins or losses, but the organizational alignment with core values. The expectation is that if one remains aligned with such values, the outcome should take care of itself.
The Golden State Warriors have had their share of winning seasons, and championships, but they’ve also failed several times during Steve Kerr’s tenure. Winning year after year is a near impossible thing, there are just too many factors that are out of one’s control to guarantee winning a championship each year.
What Steve can control is the environment he, his staff, and the team co-create to set the table for the possibility of winning. Success is when your behaviors align with your values.
I think this is something that is missing more and more in society today.
People, especially our leaders, standing up for what you believe in, treating others the way you would wish to be treated, doing what you say you will do, and calling yourself out when you don’t.
Do the exercise of identifying what truly matters to you, and then reflect on how that should look in terms of your behavior and action.
Then take the time to evaluate yourself from time to time, and call yourself out when you don’t meet your mark.
If we all did this a little more, instead of pointing fingers at everyone else, we would all be a lot better off.
