{"id":37614,"date":"2024-04-18T13:22:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T20:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37614"},"modified":"2024-04-18T13:23:35","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T20:23:35","slug":"operationalizing-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/operationalizing-values\/","title":{"rendered":"“Operationalizing” Values"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our home has a list of \u201cHarris values\u201d hanging by our front door. Our church has \u201cGodwhy\u2019s values\u201d hanging in the hallway so everyone sees them as they walk into the caf\u00e9 area (strategic placing). However, until I read Daring to Lead<\/em> by Brene Brown, it never occurred to me to “operationalize” them for our family or church. We consistently discuss our values and highlight them to our kids and community members. Still, we never committed to creating specific behaviors or actions to express these values in our home or church. What a miss!<\/p>\n

Brene Brown says this lack of practicing values is the reason people roll their eyes when we talk about them. She explains her research by stating, \u201cIn our experience, only about 10 percent of organizations have operationalized their values into teachable and observable behaviors that are used to train their employees and hold them accountable. Ten percent<\/em>.\u201d[i]<\/a> Is she telling us that posting our values won\u2019t cause them to magically appear in our families or organizations?!?<\/p>\n

One of the main thrusts of Brene\u2019s book is that living out our ideal values is difficult in practice but relieves the internal tension within us when we practice them. Values require action, accountability, hard conversations, and vulnerability. \"\"<\/a>\u00a0Brene prioritizes two values, courage, and faith, for her own life which can be practiced in several ways. For example, she mentions how<\/em> she gives and receives feedback as part of her practice of courage. When it comes to giving feedback, she lists several postures and mindsets she inventories within herself to gauge her readiness for these moments. A few she says:<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m ready to give feedback when I\u2019m ready to sit next to you rather than across from you.<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m ready to give feedback when I\u2019m ready to listen, ask questions, and accept that I may not fully understand the issue.<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m ready to give feedback when I\u2019m ready to acknowledge what you do well instead of just picking apart your mistakes.<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m ready to give feedback when I can talk about how resolving these challenges will lead to growth and opportunity.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Simple. Practical. Insightful. Thanks, Brene!<\/p>\n

Of course, Brene uses this book to encourage and inspire her readers to identify two, not ten, core values they personally hold and operationalize them. This is not easy! I felt like I did while reading Eve Poole\u2019s book, Leadersmithing.[iii]<\/a> Where do I begin?! \u00a0I looked through the list, underlining the words that jumped out at me. There were several that stood out. However, what helped me narrow down these words to two was reflecting on times when I felt the most internal tension when I was not living out my values. These are the things that keep me up at night or gnaw at me until I address them.<\/p>\n

For example, while in my first few years of youth ministry, I consumed a steady diet of authors and YouTube preachers with similar ideas. I naturally began adopting their interpretations as my own and preached them one night to my youth. I didn\u2019t sleep all night. It felt like I had violated something to my core, and eventually, I realized I did not actually believe what I was saying. I changed my approach after this. One of my friends said they had a theology professor tell them, if you half believe something, preach it like you believe it 100%. I don\u2019t have a box for this type of approach.<\/p>\n

Another example that came to mind happened during a church service in my Pentecostal tradition when I was around 13 or 14 years old. A group of people were praying for me at the altar to receive the Spirit with the evidence and gift of speaking in tongues or glossolalia.[iv]<\/a> The pastor, with a big smile on his face, put me on the spot with his microphone and said, \u201cDid you get it?!\u201d I did not want to disappoint and knew I felt something, so I said, \u201cI did!\u201d The crowd cheered, and I immediately felt conflicted. Once again, this ate at me until I had to call the pastor a couple of days later and explain my confusion and regret. Eventually, I did have that type of spiritual experience, and it changed my life, but that\u2019s a different story. Authenticity has always seemed to be a core value of mine.<\/p>\n

If I had to narrow down another value I hold based on internal tension, it would be growth. My brother bought me a picture with the phrase \u201cGet comfortable with feeling challenged. It means you\u2019re growing.\u201d It hangs in my office. Maybe this is cheating, but when I think about growth, it means growing in love, wisdom, understanding, character, knowledge, skills, well-being, etc. This is why this doctoral program and other opportunities like last week with the inter-religious workshop in Washington, DC, was so edifying. When I am not growing, helping those around me grow, or in an environment of growth, I feel stagnated, uneasy, and empty. This is why Edwin Friedman\u2019s Failure of Nerve was so validating. Organizations and people are either evolving and adapting to strength or devolving and adapting to dysfunction and complacency.[v]<\/a> \u00a0Now that I\u2019ve nailed these values down, which was hard to choose just two, my task is operationalizing them!<\/p>\n

Operationalize:<\/p>\n

Authenticity \u2013 Take daily risks sharing my honest perspective about a subject or situation even when it goes against the grain or will lead to \u201crumbling with vulnerability\u201d.<\/p>\n

Growth \u2013 Assess moments when I\u2019m avoiding something difficult but necessary due to feelings of discomfort, then engage.<\/p>\n

Curious about other people\u2019s values and ways you plan to \u201coperationalize\u201d them!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Brown, Bren\u00e9. Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts<\/em> (New York: Random House, 2018), 190.<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> Brown, Dare to Lead, 199-201.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> Poole, Eve. Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership<\/em>. London\u202f; New York, NY: Bloomsbury Business, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017.<\/p>\n

[iv]<\/a> Glossolalia, (from Greek\u00a0gl\u014dssa<\/em>, \u201ctongue,\u201d and\u00a0lalia<\/em>, \u201ctalking\u201d), utterances approximating words and speech, usually produced during states of intense\u00a0religious experience<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cGlossolalia.\u201d Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica. Accessed April 18, 2024. https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/glossolalia.<\/p>\n

[v]<\/a> Friedman, Edwin H., Margaret M. Treadwell, and Edward W. Beal. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>. 10th anniversary revised edition. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our home has a list of \u201cHarris values\u201d hanging by our front door. Our church has \u201cGodwhy\u2019s values\u201d hanging in the hallway so everyone sees them as they walk into the caf\u00e9 area (strategic placing). However, until I read Daring to Lead by Brene Brown, it never occurred to me to “operationalize” them for our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[3104,2502,1516],"class_list":["post-37614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-brene","tag-dlgp2","tag-dare-to-lead","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37617,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37614\/revisions\/37617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}