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The Vision + Value + Voice Model

People occasionally ask about the name of the first company we started to help leaders improve organizational cultures, E Pluribus Partners. It is a nod to “E pluribus unum,” the original motto of the United States, which means “out of many, one” in Latin. We chose this unusual-looking and tricky to pronounce phrase because it reflects how connection enables the best of what the many bring for the benefit of the collective one.

It’s interesting to note how other languages capture a similar notion. The French phrase esprit de corps, for example, literally means “the spirit of the body.” In certain countries in Africa, ubuntu refers to one’s connection to the community. At one of our seminars, a Japanese woman taught us that the Japanese call connection ittaikan, which means “to feel as one body of people.” Connection is a universal phenomenon.

As I shared in the previous chapter, in our work with organizations, we define connection in the workplace as a bond among people based on shared identity, empathy, and understanding that moves individuals toward group-centered membership. Let’s unpack these concepts.

Identity is how people think of themselves—it’s their story or narrative, including their values, reputation, and mission, if they have one. When people share an identity that inspires them and makes them feel proud, it creates a sense of connection, community, and unity among the members of the group.

Shared empathy is increased when people get to know and care for one another. Valuing people in and of themselves, rather than as a means to an end, is key. Emotions are contagious, so as empathy increases people become more sensitive to the feelings of others, and as a result become more considerate and compassionate (Hatfield et al. 1994).

Shared understanding arises when members of a group are in the know, so to speak. They are informed on matters important to them, and their opinions and ideas are sought and considered. In other words, when there is an abundance of conversation and communication within a group, it produces a high degree of knowledge flow that results in shared understanding.

One of our goals early on was to come up with a model that would help leaders at any level of an organization cultivate a healthy workplace culture. We knew it had to be simple, memorable, and actionable. People could remember the formula of Task Excellence + Relationship Excellence = Sustainable Superior Performance, but when it came to the Relationship Excellence piece, the terms shared identity, shared empathy, and shared understanding weren’t sticking in the minds of some of our clients. To address that, our colleague Carolyn Dewing-Hommes distilled it down to three Vs that represent the same ideas for the primary elements of a connection culture. Hereafter we will refer to shared identity, empathy, and understanding as vision, value, and voice, respectively.

Assessing the Health of Your Work Culture

When we first began researching employee engagement and organizational effectiveness, we interviewed individuals and asked them to consider their own work (or volunteer) experiences in answering the following:

More often than not, individuals described an emotional reaction (how they felt). The following are typical responses, along with commentary explaining the rationale for categorizing them under vision, value, voice, or task excellence and results. As you read through the lists, you might want to put a check mark next to statements that resonate with you in the context of your current job.

Vision

The positive responses in the table below reflect a sense of shared experience and identity. People felt connected to their work because of the group’s focused effort, and their individual contribution made a meaningful difference. In the most powerful connecting experiences, the work improved the lives of others. A sense of shared identity develops among group members as their attitudes, language, and behaviors communicate the importance of the work, how the work is done in a way that reflects shared values, and how the work is producing positive results.

Value

The positive responses show that people feel valued as human beings, rather than being treated as a means to an end. They had supervisors and leaders who cared about them, took time to get to know them, and helped them get into the right roles so they could continue to learn and grow. These leaders encouraged people when they did good work, gave them autonomy, and kept them challenged but didn’t chronically overload them with so much work that they had no work-life balance. The people they worked with valued them too. A sense of shared empathy develops among group members as their attitudes, language, and behaviors communicate that they are valued as individuals and not merely for their work.

Voice

The positive responses reflect people who believed that they were kept informed about important matters and had a voice—their opinions and ideas were sought and considered. They also appreciated the openness of their culture and the open-mindedness of leaders. A sense of shared understanding develops among group members as their attitudes, language, and behaviors increase communication and bring greater clarity to issues that are important to individual members.

Task Excellence and Results

The positive responses reflect a passion for excellence. When people worked with competent colleagues, their work was held to high standards and they produced positive results. This contributed to the sense of connection among employees.

When vision, value, and voice are all present in an organization, it creates a connection culture. Let’s dive deeper into what each of these elements looks like in practice.

Vision + Value + Voice

The first element of a connection culture is vision. It exists in a culture when everyone is motivated by the mission, united by the values, and proud of the reputation. When people share a purpose or set of beliefs, it unites and motivates them. At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, they are united and motivated by the aspiration stated in their tagline, “The Best Cancer Care, Anywhere,” and the organization’s reputation as one of the leading cancer centers in the world.

The following is one of my favorite examples of a brilliant leader’s desire to instill vision in a company. During World War II, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt traveled to Seattle, Washington, to meet with 18,000 aircraft workers at Boeing Corporation. He brought along Hewitt Wheless, a young airplane pilot from Texas who had escaped death thanks to the resilience of the bullet-riddled B-17 plane he flew out of harm’s way. His plane had been built at that very Boeing plant. Seeing and hearing that young pilot thank them for saving his life connected the aircraft workers to a common cause. It transformed those welders and riveters into freedom fighters. From 1941 until 1945 American aircraft companies out-produced the Nazis three to one, building nearly 300,000 airplanes (Kearns Goodwin 1994).

Vision is more than identifying and articulating a mission. It also includes understanding how an organization goes about accomplishing its mission. In other words, vision encompasses the organization’s values or beliefs about what is right and, by implication, what isn’t right in how it conducts its business. An organization’s mission and values, including how it lives up to them or doesn’t, produces a reputation that employees are proud of, indifferent to, or embarrassed by. When employees are proud of their organization’s reputation, they feel more connected.

Vision + Value + Voice

The second element of a connection culture is value. It means that people are truly valued as individuals, not merely for what they produce. Value exists in a culture when everyone understands the needs of people, appreciates their positive unique contributions, and helps them achieve their potential.

In leading the turnaround of Dun and Bradstreet, Allan Loren established a rule that no meeting would be scheduled on Mondays or Fridays if it required people to travel over the weekend (Hanessian and Sierra 2005). He cared for people enough to protect their personal time. Loren also wanted to see people grow, so he implemented a program that matched everyone in the organization with a mentor who would provide continuous performance feedback. Mentors were selected based on their strengths in the areas that a particular employee wanted to improve upon.

Head of the Tata Group until he retired in 2012, Ratan Tata’s response to the November 26, 2008, terrorist attack on the Tata-owned Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel in Mumbai, India, showed how much he valued employees. Dependents of the 80 employees who were affected were flown to Mumbai and housed for three weeks. Tata personally visited all their families and attended the funerals of those who died. He also provided counseling for his employees and their families and forgave any outstanding loans to the affected employees. In addition, he established a trust fund so that dependents of those who died would continue to receive the deceased person’s salary for life, the education of their children and dependents would be paid for, and the families would receive healthcare for the remainder of their lives.

Founded in 1877 and based in Mumbai, the Tata Group is one of the most respected organizations in the world. The “Tata family” comprises more than 700,000 people working in more than 100 countries across six continents. It conducts business the “Tata Way,” which prioritizes people and social responsibility over profit maximization. Tata was one of the first businesses to institute an eight-hour workday and distributes so much of its profit to philanthropic causes that some critics have questioned whether this generosity is wise. In answer to this criticism, Ratan Tata responded, “I would like to think this is the best part of what Tata stands for…. We really do care” (Rajgopaul 2010; Tata 2019; Tata Group 2014).

Vision + Value + Voice

The third element of a connection culture is voice. It exists when everyone seeks the ideas and opinions of others, shares opinions honestly, and safeguards relational connections. In a culture in which voice exists, decision makers have the humility to know that they don’t have a monopoly on good ideas, and they need to seek and consider the opinions and ideas of others in order to make the best decisions. When people’s ideas and opinions are sought and considered, it helps meet the human needs for respect, recognition, and belonging. Being in the loop makes people feel connected to their colleagues, whereas being out of the loop does the opposite.

Over the course of her remarkable 34-year career at Xerox, Anne Mulcahy’s leadership roles were varied, giving her a broad understanding of the organization and an ever-expanding network of relationships with colleagues. When she was appointed CEO of Xerox Corporation in 2001, the company was nearly broke and the company’s lawyers and financial advisers told her to file for bankruptcy protection. She refused. Instead, she hit the road to meet with Xerox employees and customers, logging 100,000 miles of travel her first year. She was open and told them what she thought had to be done, even telling Wall Street analysts that the Xerox business model was unsustainable, which precipitated a 26 percent drop in the value of Xerox stock the following day.

Mulcahy shared the good, the bad, and the ugly with employees, solicited their ideas and opinions, and implemented the best ones. During the next decade, Mulcahy and her colleagues brought Xerox back to life. One Xerox board member described it as a miracle. When she retired in 2010 as Chairman and CEO, the first woman in the company’s history to hold either role, Xerox had been transformed into an innovative digital technology and services enterprise. Years later, I spoke with Anne about connection culture and her time at Xerox. She shared that, for her, voice is about “having an active, participative role where people see themselves in the picture and they know what to do, they know how to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. That interactive relationship of dialoguing with … people is a huge part of people feeling engaged and therefore being able to have impact” (Mulcahy 2012).

Connection Character

As part of gathering and reviewing the research for Fired Up or Burned Out, I studied the field of positive psychology. Positive psychologists reviewed religious and philosophical systems and identified six virtues that have 24 underlying character strengths (descriptions can be found in appendix I). Positive psychologists believe that these character strengths improve mental and physical health and favor the survival of civilizations.

It was an aha moment for me when I saw a clear link between these character strengths and the elements of a connection culture. These character strengths also favor the survival of organizations. For example, when individuals possess bravery, creativity, curiosity, honesty, humility, judgment, love of learning, perspective, and prudence, the connection culture element of voice is present in a culture. The Character > Connection > Thrive Chain (Figure 3-1) shows how everything fits together.

As an aside, the 24 character strengths are found in belief systems that have been sustained for long periods of time, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, and Humanism. Unfortunately, most belief systems have renegade branches that promote hate rather than live out the character strengths. These hate groups often masquerade as a major belief system in name but certainly not in deed. For example, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi movement promoted “Positive Christianity.” However, his message and actions were utterly at odds with Jesus’s teaching to love, serve others, and be humble. Hate groups may thrive for a time, but eventually collapse for a lack of human value (the very heart of a connection culture).

FIGURE 3-1. THE CHARACTER > CONNECTION > THRIVE CHAIN

Many individuals have observed the importance of character to human flourishing. David McCullough (1991), the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and historian, wrote: “While there are indeed great, often unfathomable forces in history before which even the most exceptional of individuals seem insignificant, the wonder is how often events turn upon a single personality, or the quality we call character.” In one of his most memorable speeches, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. shared that he dreamed of a day when his four young children would “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The late Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, held up Frances Hesselbein as an extraordinary leader, calling her “a model for living one’s values” (Diversity Woman 2014). The former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, Hesselbein defined leadership as “a matter of how to be, not how to do.” She underscored this by explaining, “We spend most of our lives learning how to do and teaching other people how to do, yet it is the quality and character of the leader that determines the performance, the results” (Hesselbein 2012).

John Wooden, the legendary coach of the UCLA men’s basketball team, frequently taught his players that “ability may get you to the top, but only character will keep you there” (Wooden 1997). His observation that both ability and character are necessary to perform at the top of your game is similar to the connection culture model: task excellence + relationship excellence (connection) = sustainable superior performance. When coaching, Wooden used a system called the “Pyramid of Success,” which included the building blocks of industriousness, enthusiasm, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, self-control, alertness, initiative, intentness, condition, skill, and team spirit. He taught his players that believing and behaving in a way that is consistent with these values produced poise and confidence that resulted in competitive greatness (that is, the desire to continuously challenge oneself in life). Patience and faith make up the mortar that holds the blocks together. Once the pyramid was built, it meant that the player met Wooden’s standards, and he earned the right to be called a member of the UCLA basketball team.

Organizations also have character. They reflect the collective character of the people who work in them and especially the character of their leaders. An organization’s annual report may state values such as integrity and honesty, but if the people who are part of the organization don’t follow those values, they are either frauds or, more likely, blind to their own character issues. Great leaders are not only intentional about connecting, they are intentional about developing their own character and the character of the people they are responsible for leading.

The people who bring vision, value, and voice into a culture and make it happen are the enablers of the connection culture model. Prior to this second edition, we used the terms of committed members and servant leaders. To simplify matters, we’ve moved to calling them connected members and connected leaders. Connected members are committed to task excellence, promoting the connection culture, and living out character strengths and virtues. They may be senior managers, receptionists, salespeople, engineers, information technology experts, or customer service representatives. Connected leaders are those connected members who have the authority to coordinate task excellence, facilitate the connection culture, and model and mentor others in connection character.

Individuals can only become connected leaders after becoming connected members. In other words, there needs to be proof of a commitment to achieving task excellence and a connection culture, and of the requisite connection character, before being given the authority to lead. With leadership authority comes the responsibility for modeling connection character, as well as mentoring others. Connected leaders are serious about modeling and mentoring others because they were shaped by the individuals who modeled leadership and mentored them.

Connected members and connected leaders develop task excellence and relationship excellence that includes vision, value, and voice. As a result, people feel connected, are more productive and energetic, give their best efforts, align their efforts with organizational objectives, and fully communicate and cooperate. This leads the organization to achieve sustainable superior performance (Figure 3-2).

FIGURE 3-2. THE CONNECTION CULTURE

Much has been written about the culture of Southwest Airlines. It is the largest domestic U.S. airline and still has an enviable record of profit in an industry that Warren Buffett once joked hadn’t made a cumulative profit since the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Southwest Airlines prides itself on its culture of putting people first and treating passengers like family. Its leaders learned from experience that connection affects performance.

Southwest Airlines’ culture services department has 30 full-time employees whose efforts help ignite employees’ passion and pride for Southwest. Additionally, the company’s culture committee encompasses more than 200 individuals from across the airline who are passionate about inspiring employees to own, strengthen, and promote Southwest’s renowned culture. Committee members have the opportunity to connect with one another at an annual culture summit, influence change by sharing their insights on a variety of topics, and serve as culture advocates in their locations. Together, culture services employees and committee members work to foster an environment where employees feel appreciated. And in the spirit of appreciation, numerous awards, both at the local and corporate levels, are given to employees who’ve been recognized by their peers for living out the company’s values. Southwest knows the value of a strong company culture and invests in their people and programs to ensure the unique culture continues to flourish (Crabtree 2019).

What happens without a connection culture? While task excellence may be present for a while, in cultures of control or indifference most managers and employees put up self-protective barriers that keep them from performing at the top of their game. The disconnection sabotages task excellence and the organization suffers too (Figure 3-3).

FIGURE 3-3. CULTURES OF CONTROL AND INDIFFERENCE

Leaders who foster cultures of control or cultures of indifference may succeed for a while, but their success is built on feet of clay that will inevitably crumble. History is filled with examples of this. Our heroes are the individuals who cultivate connection and bring vision, value, and voice to cultures they influence. Wherever you find great nations, companies, nonprofits, and sports teams, you will find these great individuals who cultivate cultures of connection.

Making It Personal

   Write a list of the elements in a culture that would fire you up, then write out a list of the elements in a culture that would burn you out. Look through each list to see if you can identify elements that fall under vision, value, and voice as well as task excellence and results.

   Read through the descriptions of the 24 character strengths in appendix I. Which character strengths are most important for your team to do its work well? Are there character strengths on the list that you believe your team needs to strengthen? Consider how you might strengthen those areas and start taking action.