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Resetting Your Culture’s Values
AT&T teams clarify their values—and achieve years of understanding in a matter of hours
by Advantage Associates Dennis T. Jaffe and Cynthia Scott of Changeworks Solutions
As organizations become more complex, individual managers and teams must operate more autonomously and flexibly, while achieving better results amid heightened competition. Two questions therefore arise—how do we align the efforts of different teams, and how do we get the highest level of commitment from our people?
These issues were of primary concern to AT&T, where reengineering had resulted in new team structures, new players, and new roles. The company sought a way to help teams resolve day-to-day problems, act in ways that supported the entire organization, and be successful in a new “virtual” environment that would require them to work in widely dispersed locations.
 The Power of Values
The Advantage solution was Real Learning’s Values exercise, which AT&T presented to its Southwest Area Managers. Values helps professionals clarify, communicate, and bring into alignment—essentially “reset”—the values that individuals hold and teams need to perform effectively. AT&T wanted its managers to use that awareness as the framework in which to build commitment and align individuals, teams, and the organization.
Methodology
During the Values exercise, managers defined and shared their personal work values, then worked in teams to develop the set of values that defined high performance within their group. Using this first tier of values as a guide, the managers developed team value assessments that articulated the behaviors they wanted to see more of, and less of, from each person.
Values was a compelling and personal experience that required the managers to move beyond abstract statements and specify exactly what was meant by each value. When groups reached agreement, individual and team values were posted on large Value Maps. These maps were presented to managers for display and reinforcement back on the job.
Results
For the AT&T managers, one immediate result of resetting values was a greater appreciation of individual diversity. As managers examined each other’s key values, they discovered how differing values were often the root of work disagreements. This breakthrough, achieved in a matter of hours, would ordinarily have required years of communication and understanding.
Values is also helping to build a shared sense of one integrated organization, which will support AT&T’s desire to create a “virtual” work environment. The entire organization is becoming aligned according to shared values while respecting the diversity of values held by various team members.
After Values, each manager was given materials and a workbook to help them facilitate a workshop with their own teams. Two months later, AT&T managers were enthusiastic about the results, noting these key benefits:
- New teams learned about each other quickly
People opened up about themselves. They were able to quickly understand each other at a level that often required years of communication. People spoke about personal issues and concerns about their work that they didn’t usually share.
- People gained understanding and respect for individual differences
Everyone came away with a better understanding, and appreciation of the diversity of values. They also learned the importance of balancing differing perspectives. This was especially helpful in dealing with team conflict and differences of opinion.
- Teams developed a shared understanding
People discovered that there could be a common core among people who were very different. This created congruence and shared understanding among team members, as people began to understand the values that peoples’ behaviors were representing. (Some participants even used the Values exercise with their families.)
- Managers gained a tool for preventing conflict
AT&T Managers felt that the best use of the Values concepts was with team members with whom managers were having difficulty. Managers and team members were able to look at differences in a nonevaluative way and find ways of working more effectively together. Values gave managers a tool to use to reveal the reasons behind interpersonal conflict and a path toward common ground.
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Values helps organizations create and embed a set of guiding and lasting values.
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