How to Link Personal Values with Team Values by Jaffe, Dennis T. and Scott, Cynthia D.

In this article the focus on aligning personal and team values reminds me of real-world workplace conflicts where misaligned values often cause misunderstandings. This creates tension, leading to conflict, especially when the company’s values aren’t clearly communicated or open to discussion.

This article brings up an interesting point about expectations of values within the workplace. So often have employees entered a workplace and just assumed that the other employees and managers would have similar values. On the opposing side, workplaces often assume employees are aligned with the company’s values, without taking the time to explore individuals’ values. This assumption is detrimental as it allows employees go off of assumptions rather than clearly defined values. Lulling companies and employees into a false sense of security. By not having clear expectations of values including standards on how work should be done, what goals are prioritized, or how success is measured conflicts arise. Additionally, when conflicts arise, team set values can serve as a non-judgmental reference point to resolve them.

The main difference that I could find between this article and the real world is companies focus on understanding individual employees’ values. In the real world companies are much more focused on defining and enforcing corporate values. The text describes organizations that leverage and discuss personal values. Many times corporations will not even speak about corporate or personal values unless a conflict arises. Using the discussion of values as a fire extinguisher instead of a prevention mechanism. In short, the real world often leans more toward reactive conflict resolution based on assumed shared values.