"My Values"
After reading the chapter "Personal and Organizational Values" in The Human Challenge (Tucker), I found it interesting to compare my own personal values to those stressed in a business organization when completing the "My Values" assignment. After much thought and careful selection while working on the exercise, I narrowed down my top five personal values to include the following: Happiness, Integrity, Loving, Freedom, and Discipline. Of these five characteristics, only integrity is specifically mentioned in Chapter 3 of the textbook. This made me question whether or not my personal values would be the most beneficial to have within an organization, and also wonder whether a code of ethics within an organization is a facilitator or an inhibitor of good decision making. For, as mentioned in class, it may be possible for employees to follow a code of ethics so astutely that they do not take into account their own beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. The conclusion at which I arrived is that while there are many good values to encourage businessmen/women to adhere to for the good of an organization, the unique personal values of each individual within the organization should also be stressed as important for its well-being.
Comments
Posted by: Meredith
Posted on: September 23, 2006 07:48 PM
Hi, Matt,
I think that the content of your post is exemplary. Great to see!
My response to Tucker's work not addressing your values is as follows:
Who is Tucker? What perspective does he represent? Do all organizations adhere to his theory?
It is true, I am being partially rhetorical here, since I know that not all organizations prioritize their values as Tucker describes.
While, Tucker's perspective is an important one to consider, especially if you want a sense of what traditional organizational values might include in a general sense, it does not mean that you should change your own values.
One of the more revolutionary concepts in recent management theory and practice is that:
It is not purely the employee's responsibility to fit into an organization; rather, the organization has a responsibility to accommodate its employees.
I am pleased to see that you are already on this path of thinking.
Let me end with one more suggestion: when thinking about organizational fit, do the leg-work in the beginning! Read company information and ask potential, future colleagues/bosses what they think are the company's values. You can then narrow down your search based on finding companies that have espoused (and practiced!) values that match your own. It saves a lot of time in the long-run to do this research up-front, as opposed to entering an organization and realizing that your values do not coincide with the organization's.
I look forward to your future posts, Matt,
Meredith
ps: You receive a grade of .5pts of 1 possible point for the first round of blogging. While your post is on-time and excellent in content, you have lost credit for grammatical errors. Please see my blog (and the Blogging Guidelines on Bb) for additional details and suggestions for appropriate blogs: http://blog.case.edu/myers/mt-tb.cgi/9857