Growing a team pt 4: Start as you mean to go on
When I first started as a freelance consultant I knew it was important for me to articulate to myself and others what was important in my business and what this meant for how we might work together. Looking back on what I set out a lot has changed, but the core of it has remained the same: if I want to create a more equitable and collaborative world I need to model that in my own practices. Spelling out a few things that I thought that might entail has forced me to keep myself honest, and in turn will allow me to maintain that integrity as our team and our work grows and involves more people.
Part of this is about setting out your values as a freelancer or a business. Investing time up front in being clear about my values as a business has saved me time in the long-run. It’s enabled me to more easily communicate with clients about why I do things in the way I do them, and helped me to be more confident in knowing where the boundaries are. It forces me to pause for a moment and ask myself questions like: is it okay to work with this company who I know don’t share my values? is it okay that this person has offered to do free work for me - how does that sit with my values? Is it okay that I’m working long hours when I said I wanted to be flexible around my kids? Sometimes the answer is “Yes it’s okay because…”. Other times the answer is “No I don’t feel comfortable with this but I would if X was the case”. And sometimes I’m not sure of the answer and I talk to my coach, partners or clients about it to work out what the issue is - and I’m able to do this because I’ve articulated my values to all of them.
Setting out your values and what that means for the way you approach your work, and the type of work you may or may not do, often gets put on the back burner by businesses because they believe it takes too much time. But investing that small amount of time up front has not only helped me to make better decisions but I believe it’s also helped me make faster decisions in situations that I might of agonised over, or regretted, if I hadn’t set these boundaries and values up front.
I’ve also heard businesses talking about values as being overly restrictive - but I often find that a little bit of restriction can actually expand the possibilities of your work. And if living by your values means you’re not getting to do what you believe you should be doing then it’s time to be more honest about your values and your needs. I know I’ve got to wrestle with how my own values fit with needing to generate more income for myself to ensure sustainability and flexibility in my work. But having already articulated what’s important to me I can think more clearly about what’s missing or what needs to change in order to make this possible.
Even when working on your own you need to review your values and principles on a regular basis. I reviewed ours recently as we endeavoured to work with more people and I will review them again as our team and community grows to make sure the values grow with the people that make up Collaborative Future. Your values will help you to find people to work with that share your outlook, but you also need to adapt your culture to fit the people you hire or collaborate with too. Next week we’ll talk about finding the right people when growing your team, and how sometimes the right people are actually those who challenge the way you set out to do business.