Values in Conflict

At 5 a.m. Sunday morning Miriam would get up long before her alarm and take a long walk around the lake. By 7 a.m. she would be dressed and ready to enjoy the rest of her day. She loved her free days. There was so much she wanted to do and did do on them. Granted, she didn’t have much time these days. She was swamped at work and putting in nearly around the clock hours, again. But, what time she had, she used to the fullest.

Come Monday morning, her zest for life would disappear. Getting out of bed took a great effort. She dreaded the day ahead. While she accomplished a lot in the course of the day and her energy returned once at her desk, the early mornings were awful. It seemed to take more energy for her to get ready and into work than it took to do the Due Diligence process she was in the midst of performing.

What was so odd for Miriam was that she used to love coming to work. Working on these projects used to be just as renewing and energizing (or even more so than her free time). She began to wonder what happened.

As she explored, she realized that she felt two issues at hand. One was hat she felt very disconnected from the merger process. She wanted to be more involved in the implementation, in enabling the change process and integration, not just the analysis beforehand.

Secondly, she had lost touch with her deeper motivation. She loved to experience success. Working on mergers used to be exciting. She felt that she was doing adding value to the company. As time passed and she could see the impact of the mergers, she began to question the value. Sure, there was a financial payback, but walking through the merged companies a year after the merger was often like walking through a robotics factory. People seemed to be disengaged, their spirits down and she was sure, that productivity, service and output were all effected as well.

The more she thought about what was happening, she realized that she had to align her work with her values somehow. She was sure that the merger strategy that she had undertaken was the best way for her company to grow. So, change was not about creating a new strategy, but rather, how she went about implementing the strategy. As Miriam looked at what she wanted to accomplish, her vision became clearer. She wanted to enable healthy mergers for both her company and the integration of employees.

Once she was clear about the outcome she wanted and felt her values realigned with her work, her energy and zest for work returned. She was ready to take action, involve her team, a cross-section of stakeholders and a small group of PMI consultants to design a new implementation strategy.

• When is your energy low or when do you feel resistant in starting a task? 
• How does the action at hand support your values? 
• Where is there conflict? 
• What changes do you need to make to realign your values and your work? 
• What can you do to enable this to happen? 
• Who can you involve in the process?