Getting in sync with your employees: identify and address value system differences.

• Author: Curry, Lynne
• Position: HR Matters

You and your employees don't see eye to eye. You expect that work means work. One of your employees, otherwise talented and hard-working, texts throughout the day, insisting it takes less than five minutes total time and "isn't she allowed a break?" Meanwhile your new sales manager, while getting great results, keeps his eye on Craigslist. When you find out, you ask him "how come?" and he says "he's perfectly happy with his job but he likes to stay tuned into the marketplace." While you realize there may not be a lot you can do about this unless you want to let him go, deep down his behavior strikes you as disloyal.

If these weren't problem enough, you find out your tremendously likeable office manager knew four months ago that your past sales manager was job searching. You confront her, asking why she didn't let you know. She explains she didn't seem fair to "out" her colleague. "What about being fair to me?" you ask. "I didn't want to get him mad at me and thought he should be the one to tell you," she says. You'd assumed your office manager understood her role included keeping you briefed on issues as important as a key player's pending resignation. Your disappointment and her hurt feelings over being confronted creates a rift between the two of you.

If you've had similar situations arise in your workplace, you may find valuable the work of Charles Hughes and Vince Flowers. Briefly outlined on the Dallas-based Center for Values Research website and provided in detail in texts such as "Values Systems Analysis," Hughes and Flowers created a tool managers can use to identify and address deep-seated value differences between managers and their employees.

COMPETITIVE, COMPASSIONATE, CONVENTIONAL

According to Hughes and Flowers, your sales manager fits the "competitive" value system. Those with this value system push the envelope in a quest for new opportunities. While these managers and employees make great sales professionals and negotiators, those who manage them need to realize these individuals view winning the game as all-important and believe money the measure of victory. The rub--you may see these individuals as overly opportunistic.

Can you successfully manage an individual more competitive than you? Yes--if you realize that they value a boss adept at politics and frequently remind them "this is how we make working hard for us worth your while."

Your office manager embraces a more compassionate value system. In her mind, getting along...