What are VECTOR's values?

Posted 29 May 2020 in president; tagged with idea

I wonder what members think about holding an annual values workshop for VECTOR. Strong peer-organized organizations review shared values each year to strengthen and tune internal and external teamwork. Please send me your feedback after you read about the idea below (email).

In 2018 and 2019, we held a couple of workshops to raise member ideas to the front of our attention. To keep your evolving ideas in mind, VECTOR must hold annual “feedback workshops”.

After only the session in November 2019, we learned over 67 ideas suitable for VECTOR. Quite a backlog until people adopt, champion and deliver desired ideas. Imagine the added backlog we could collect in annual workshops. Perhaps overwhelming. What if we could use a different way to make member ideas reality?

Dear member,

What do you think about holding a workshop where we examine and update VECTOR’s organizational values? Details about how that could work follow.

Here’s an outline of what’s ahead:

For your convenience, you may use the form that follows the details below for sharing your thoughts, if you wish.

1. Are these VECTOR’s values?

For a quick example, here are six shared values from my table at the VVC team-building workshop on 2019-11-12.

Compassion
Curiosity
Integrity
Perseverence
Respect
Trust

We worked from a list of 112 values that Brene Brown compiled for Dare to Lead. Our table of 10 or so people picked 29, overlapping on four out of five values per person. What are your top five values from the list?

Now, let’s ponder five top values VECTOR shows me:

Competence
Integrity
Adaptability
Reliability
Simplicity

You have seen some of these and at least one I missed.

2. How might the workshop go?

We would need to dedicate a specific time to doing a few group activities focused on crystallizing our assumed organization values. Will a scaled-down version in one evening work for us? Do we need a special day-long event? Do we need a short series of 2-hour blocks?

Possible activities we could fit in 2 to 4 hours:

reflecting on top-five values people attending hold: individually, then in small groups, then together (“1, 4, all”) – similar to an activity in the VVC team-building workshop of 2019, working from Brown’s broad list
some combination of 2 or 3 activities from the “Liberating Structures” menu

3. Why talk values each year?

I am learning how organizations that work like living things (made up of a network of self-managing teams) are solving community needs. Organizations doing this are amazingly impactful. Some people call these “Teal” organizations.

Teal organizations do many cool practices, including:

working toward a “just cause” specific to the organization
holding an annual “values workshop” so members can review and reinforce how well the organization lives its values
using the “advice process” to make decisions
using a 4-stage “conflict mechanism” to handle conflict

4. Parting thought

I believe that VECTOR must become a network of self-organizing teams to properly serve our partners. The power and resilience of a living organization will allow us to eliminate single points of failure and truly deliver on our just cause.

Please send me your thoughts about the idea of holding at least this first values workshop, which relates to holding annual feedback or strategy workshops open to all members.

Consider the just cause that our vision, mission, and constitution point to:

Amateur radio teams supporting every part of Vancouver with VEMA and VPD to deliver messages whenever needed.

Thanks,
Jess VE7DET
2020 President, VECTOR