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Maybe you’re looking at the title of this issue and asking yourself, “What the heck is a personal culture?” Well, let me explain.
You have values, right? Maybe you haven’t articulated them out loud, but you undoubtedly have some guiding principles that shape how you live your life – whether at work or otherwise. If you haven’t gone through the mental exercise of identifying your values, take this list from the incomparable Brené Brown and pick your top 3.
Mine would probably be something like curiosity, humility, and persistence.
So, now let’s go back to personal culture, which takes the idea of values a step further. Personal culture is about how put your values into action. You might call this “living your values” but I’d argue that focusing on personal culture goes even one more step, as it’s about what your values feel like to others, similar to an organizational culture.
The beauty of this is that everyone can create a personal culture. You don’t have to be the CEO, or even a manager. No matter your role, you can set the tone for what it’s like to be around you.
Let’s come back to my list and how I create a culture around my values.
I demonstrate curiosity by committing to lifelong learning. I read books, watch videos, listen to podcasts (and not just my own!) as a way of building knowledge. I focus on sharing that with others in the appropriate moments (well, mostly the appropriate moments). I also feed my curiosity by trying to listen more than I speak and by asking questions rather than jumping in with answers. At work, my teams know that I am a student of the business – as one of my former colleagues would say, “Every day is a school day.” My goal is for all of us to learn and grow.
In a similar spirit, I show humility by showing that I value others’ expertise and won’t profess to have all the answers. I take accountability and admit mistakes when I make them. I want my teams to feel that my ego isn’t going to be a barrier to our doing good work together. More generally, I want all of us to experiment, fail, and learn from that failure. As you can see, the way I approach humility is closely linked to my focus on curiosity.
I embody persistence by not giving up easily. When I encounter roadblocks – ones that are important enough that they need to be overcome – I’ll keep exploring ways to get past them. I view obstacles as puzzles to be solved. I get creative when I need to. Do I always overcome these challenges? Of course not, but I certainly do my level best and push my teams to do theirs to figure out a way to get it done.
Put all those things together, and they help establish my personal culture. Call it my “vibe” if you want, though I think we’re all over-using the word “vibe” right now, so let’s go with
personal culture. As I said earlier, it’s more than about just living your values, because that’s focused on you. You want others to experience your values, and that’s what focusing on personal culture does.
OK, clearer now? And do you have a personal culture? Email us at info@pathwise.io and share your thoughts!
JR and the PathWise team
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