Aligning Values: Personal Growth in the Workplace

Many companies have core values, which are a set of values that they share throughout the company on how everyone should proceed in their jobs.

At the Bruce Lee Family Company, Shannon has created core values for the company. With the New Lunar Year approaching Shannon has decided to revisit those core values. Shannon started with core values from her father's philosophy and has refined her own core values for the Bruce Lee Family Company.

In developing her core values for the Bruce Lee Family Company, Shannon asked herself, "What does it really take to work at the Bruce Lee Family Company?"

Bruce Lee was against compartmentalizing your life. Often we have our own personal values at home and then we have to switch to our workplace's values. It is really important to Shannon to create harmony between her personal values and her work values, and she is lucky enough to get to shape the culture at her work.

The Bruce Lee Family Company is a really small workplace, and it has been an interesting journey for Shannon to decide what the workplace culture will be. She has found that the people who stay in the company really work well within the core values and those who leave did not fit the values. This is why having core values at work is so important, it helps you build a solid team of people who work well together.

The conversation of core values at work is an important one to have because many people have small businesses or work for themselves, and might not have considered creating an office culture for themselves. The work place has shifted so much that there are many more people who are working in small work environments and establishing shared values will help you build a better workplace and team.

Shannon's core values of Best Effort, Personal Responsibility, and Uplift are how she wants to show-up in the workplace and how she wants others to show-up.

Best Effort:

Understanding that your best is different depending on the day and where you are in your life, try to approach everything with your best quality effort. Do just a little more than what's required. There's fulfillment and gratification in a job well done.

Personal Responsibility:

Know what you need to do (or find out) and do it. You will not be micro-managed or handheld. You will be supported and encouraged to be a strong, competent, skilled and creative individual, but you are responsible for your own success, progress and advancement. You are responsible for figuring out how best to do your job through Communication, Relationship, Curiosity, Best Effort and being open to Change. Take initiative toward your own growth.

Uplift:

Be a source of uplift. Positive attitude and energy make yourself and everyone else around you resonate at a higher frequency. It's okay to struggle. It's not okay to take it out on those around you or to desire for others to get in the mud with you if they don't want to. Cultivate empathy and compassion. Remember that you are a light. Illuminate yourself and we will all be illuminated.

Even if you don't work in an environment quite like the Bruce Lee Family Company, you can still apply these values to yourself and your work.

If you become the person who is always a source of uplift, showing up, doing high quality work, you start to attract people who practice the same work values. Then you will have a small group within the larger company that can be your best effort, high quality, work group. Your group can feed your positive energy, improve your work, and create wonderful collaborations. This will make working at a larger company more satisfying, fulfilling, and fun.

Ask yourself:

What are my values in Life?

What are my values at Work?

Are those values the same?

Can you apply those same values in both Life and Work?

What are your work values? We would love to hear from you about what values at work that you really appreciate, enjoy, and that work for you. Email us at hello@brucelee.com or tag us @brucelee on social media with #bruceleepodcast and tell us about your work values!

We are experimenting with the formatting for the podcast so we do not have an #AAHA or #BruceLeeMoment this week, but we would still love to hear from you!

We get many emails requesting advice with "What would Bruce Lee do?" and would like to start a "What would Bruce Lee do?" section of the podcast where Shannon and Sharon respond to your emails for advice. If you need advice and are wondering, "What would Bruce Lee do?" write to us at hello@brucelee.com

Read full show notes at Brucelee.com/podcast