Creating the Space for Individual & Team Values

How you can create the space to identify, acknowledge, and step into both individual and team values concurrently

By Ava Pomerantz, Winter 2021 Intern
Published April 2021

I recently noticed this ungrounded feeling when I joined a new team. I felt pulled between wanting to show up genuinely as myself as well as taking on the spirit of my new team. In order to find the connection points and way through, I needed to lean into the untethered pull, be okay with not having my footing right away, and figure out what the amorphous in between looks like. Individuals and teams both hold sets of values that inform what we care about and how we act. Our goal is to somehow be both our true selves and immerse ourselves into the team. We need a space where we can show up with courageous authenticity, identify and discuss our values and how they align and differ, and ultimately, a space where individual and team values can begin to exist in conversation together.

The liminal space is where where we are our most motivated and productive. This is a difficult balance to strike, but one that unlocks our best work. The first step is to understand and identify our individual and team values. Individual values are deep-seated beliefs that guide our actions and serve as guiding principles in our lives. They are developed through behavioral tools or deep dive reflections. Team values are collective beliefs and aspirations that guide a team’s working style and decision making process. They tend to be decided on during separate half-day off sites where we’re forced to converge on the top five values for the team relating to vision, mission, and strategy.

How do we celebrate the beauty in our differences?

It starts with inner reflection and ripples to conversations without, to the team. When I joined Thoughtium, a management consulting firm in Chicago, I began to find myself in this interplay between the internal monologue and external dialogue.

What do I value? Individually, I spent time in deep reflection journaling about, being coached on, and identifying what my values are: kindness, personal fulfillment, mental and physical health, family, community. What do we value? Collectively, we then spent time discussing what Thoughtium values: connection, relationships, community. Especially with this pandemic ridden year of multiple injustices, we were called to stand up for each other, our clients, and our community.

I looked at my own values and where I aligned and did not align in the team landscape. My coworker, supervisor and I had different top values, and this did not mean we were not a cohesive team. Instead, it meant there needed to be an intentional space for conversation around values. Broadly, it means that each person comes to the (virtual) table with a different story to share, different emotions that affect their ways of working and that begin to shape culture. It means the start of a conversation of curiosity and storytelling. We at Thoughtium call this “Creating the Space” for individual, relational, and team values to exist in conversation.

This conversation is not one size fits all; it might result in connection, and it might result in appreciation for differences. Ultimately, this mutual understanding contributes to a culture of belonging which is foundational for both individual and team values.

How do our values create opportunities to change and expand together?

While taking a coaching assessment recently I felt the space between the two statements: “I value learning” and “I’m rooted in values.” They feel interconnected, not either or, that one depends on the other. I believe that our values can change as we venture into unknowns, meet new people, and face challenges. Our values are our core, yet they do not have to be fixed; we can value learning and we can remain rooted in values, we can cycle through moments of expansion and moments of reflection.

Values create opportunities. Barrett Value Center addresses this by describing values as “Important because they help us to grow and develop. They help us to create the future we want to experience.” The Barrett program has four types of values: individual, relational, organizational, and societal. The space between individual and collective allows for each type of value in and beyond this list to exist together, to spur conversation of what the future looks like.

In order to work together, we consider questions like: How much do you keep your original team coding and how much do you open it up to expanding your genetic blueprint? What do we hold close and consider our non-negotiables? What are we more eager and open to expanding?

Within teams, we have the opportunity to develop our values while also being challenged with moments that force us to acknowledge what we hold close, our non-negotiables. In these moments, it is showing up with kindness that helps create understanding of difference.

How can we model kindness in conflict?

I’ve noticed that the specific liminal space today may not take on the same structure, or lack there of, as it does tomorrow. As we evolve, so do our values. On our Learning and Development team, our values range from mental health and a growth mindset, working to support oneself and one’s passions, finding peace in making time for connection, and replacing that value with family as the unexpected happens at any age.

There is beauty in different values as long as we make the time to offer curiosity in place of judgement. Conflicts regarding values are inevitable and it is how we approach each situation and each person with empathy and respect that fosters cultures of kindness and belonging.

We need this space between ourselves and our organizations to discuss with each other and understand who we are as individuals, who we are in relation to one another, and how we come together. Our values shape how we work as individuals (both personally and professionally, as a coach at Thoughtium works to integrate), in relationships with clients, and as a collective.

The space between individual and team values is not going away. This space is ever-present like the natural cadence of dawn turning to dusk and dusk to night. The cycle repeats and so does our work. We have the opportunity each day to explore kindness, fear, connection, failure and ultimately, to find value in the space between.