Organisational Values - Making them Visible

Over the last eighteen months the Staff and Board have been brainstorming and drafting the organisational values for our recently established School.  Rather than norms to underpin 'how we do things around here' we have developed a set of values and mindsets that underpin the culture we wish to establish.

We have a very clever designer (Visual Evolution) who helped bring these values to life as shown below.

This shared language is already helping us to further deepen the culture we set out to establish.  It is powerful at informing our practice and behaviour when faced with decisions, problems and opportunities.

Organisational Culture - Surfacing Norms

Surfacing the hidden often hard to talk about stuff has been a deliberate act in our organisation over the past few years. Building a collective understanding of culture and establishing norms that help us to function as a healthy learning community and organisation has been essential. The vision principles again became the filter. If we believed in Life Long Learning and community as our vision suggested, what were the conditions that would allow staff to be active Life Long Learners and community members. Everyone needed an opportunity to to identify the barriers that were holding us back from living out and achieving our vision. Again it was important that every voice was heard.

‘Go to the source’
‘No question is a silly question’
‘Everyone is someone’

These are examples of some of the catch phrases that have helped to create a safe environment and work place people want to belong to.