On being “Bravely Honest” at work.
Let’s talk company values.
As recruiters and candidates alike, we see them all over careers sites: regardless of industry, company size, volume of hiring. If a company advertises jobs on its website, somewhere on that landing page will be a nod to “company values”. But what do they actually mean in practice?
Generally speaking company values can be neatly defined as a set of guiding principles/beliefs that drive the way an organisation does business. These values have behaviours that exhibit them, and that in turn creates the culture of the business you work in.
With that in mind, in my first two weeks at Oodle Car Finance, I’ve been considering what our company values mean to me. I am a very values-driven person, and I would never join a company whose values didn’t align with my own (my own being: honesty, community, creativity, curiosity).
However I’d be lying if I said ‘cynicism’ wouldn’t be a solid contender for my “personal values”, and I frequently scrutinise business leaders in companies I work with to see if they live the values they hold their employees to. Afterall, I have to “sell” their business and assess candidates based on them! Most often I see companies largely hit their values, with the odd individual detractor. When I haven’t (and I am being deliberately vague because I don’t want to get sued) it’s been a stressful and jarring experience for me as either a consultant or an employee; it’s been difficult to “sell a lie”, because that goes against my own values.
So, Oodle.
Everyone’s a Builder
Nothing Hidden
Strive for Awesome
Embrace being Human
Bravely Honest
I could probably give you examples of how I’ve seen all of these values being exhibited in my short time here (and perhaps in later blogs I will!), but for now I’m going to talk about ‘Bravely Honest’. Oodle themselves define this particular value as:
“We are brave and embrace the fact we are courageous, resilient and open minded.”.
Interesting, no? Earlier this week I had a screening call with a candidate who asked me outright “What does being Bravely Honest mean in practice at Oodle?” Oooh, good question. I didn’t have examples I could give this person from their own team, as I’d only been here a week and a half at that point, but I did tell them my own personal experience as a newbie.
I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and as a (reasonably) smart and successful woman who didn’t know much about ADHD it was at first quite a shock, however, on peeling back the layers and really understanding ADHD as it presents in adult women, it’s been illuminating! It has also come with a period of sadness and mourning: so many times in my career, especially in my early career I’ve been reprimanded/disciplined/written up for behaviours that at the time confused the heck out of me. Examples include: fidgeting in meetings, zoning out, switching topics/tasks, leaving things to the last minute are all “issues” I’ve been criticised for at work, often to my utter surprise because largely my actual performance metrics/KPIs have been met. Of course, I now know that these are symptoms of ADHD and my brain is frying itself trying to behave neurotypically when it’s not. So when I had a message from a colleague in the L&D team on my third day at Oodle saying that I seemed distracted in a training meeting and was fidgeting a lot, when I knew I’d been paying attention I knew what to do.
Prior to my diagnosis I’d have been so confused by this message: knowing I’d attended and interacted and engaged I’d have felt singled out and spent a lot of time worrying about how I can amend my behaviour. This time however, in the spirit of being ‘Bravely Honest’ I decided to come out and tell my colleague I have been recently diagnosed with ADHD and that sometimes means I’m prone to fidgeting which can look distracted. I was anxious about sharing such personal information but to my great relief (and in line with our ‘Embrace being Human’ value!) my colleague instantly turned the discussion around instead to focus on how we can better support neurodiverse colleagues, and educate the wider business on how neurodiversity shows up in adults in the workplace! We’re working on that now.
I knew at that point I’d joined a business whose values are so intrinsically linked to their behaviours: a true North Star that guided how they interacted with their peers and that (as the values tapped into things I believe in) I’d come to a place where I have the potential to thrive and grow.
H/T to Sean Allen for the proofreading.
