What Do You Actually Stand For?

Wow!

Some signs are designed to be seen from a distance. Bold, bright, and impossible to ignore, they announce something about what lies behind them before you have even walked through the door.

Most organisations have a version of this. A values statement on the wall. A mission on the website. A set of principles displayed for anyone who walks through the door.

The more honest question is not what you would put on the wall but what you would put in lights: the word or phrase that actually captures what your organisation, your team, or you yourself stand for.

Most of us would choose something aspirational. It is human nature to reach for the best version of what we believe we stand for.

But some signs are earned rather than chosen. A leader whose team would put “She always has our back” above her door didn’t select that phrase from a values workshop. It was placed there by the people she had defended when it would have been easier not to.

The people around us would choose something they have actually witnessed. Those two signs are rarely identical, and the distance between them is where the most honest reflection happens. 

The signs that are instinctively true are the ones that earn the wow. What would yours say?

David R. Smith