When I am working with people in organisations and exploring values someone always asks “ are you talking about my work values or my values at home?” Can’t we just have the one set of values? Inevitably people will have home values like compassion and their work value as integrity. Why do we have this great divide between home and work? Is it that we think we can only bring our head to work, our rational business mind and leave our heart with all its compassion and empathy at home?
Our working world is now often referred to as VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. If this is the reality of what we are walking in to everyday than we are going to need both our heads and our hearts to make it through. In fact we are going to need everything we have got!
In these times of almost constant change and uncertainty we need not only to problem solve these processes with our heads but we need to feel the changes, grieve the losses and celebrate the opportunities with our hearts. Because what we know is that when we can name emotions we are better able to understand them and the behaviors associated with them. So lets decide to bring both our heads and hearts to work. We could start with a values exercise. What are your values? What are the values that define you as an individual and that you are bringing to your work team to help them to flourish. We do not have our “home” values and our “work” values we just have our values. This is me, this my line in the sand, this is what drives me and what I will fight for. Not allowing for some schism between home and work. Just a step forward in connecting our hearts and our heads at work.