Monday, March 17, 2014

Identifying Core Values




This week’s topic is about creating the right management team for your social venture. What makes a strong start-up is the leadership and core values of the organization. In the article “Building Your Company’s Vision,” the former CEO of Johnson & Johnson provided great insight into establishing the core ideology for a company. Mr. Larsen states, “The core values embodied in our credo might be a competitive advantage, but that is not why we have them. We have them because they define for us what we stand for, and we would hold them even if they became a competitive disadvantage in certain situations.” This particular statement resonates within healthcare, as we hear more about major health networks putting their profit margins before their core values. 

Not all values can be incorporated into an organization. The Forbes.com article, “3 Questions To Help You Align Company Culture with Core Values,” provides great insight, as well, on how to identify the major values to incorporate into the start-up. The first question was, “When have you felt most alive?” Applying this question to myself, I was able to reflect on why the topic of healthcare made me “feel alive”. During my time in undergrad, I was able to study a wide range of topics from biology to politics. It was not until I took a sociology class that I realized that group interactions and how society functions peaked my interests. With my focus on sociology and health, I learned that one of the core variables in sustaining a functioning society is maintaining the health of the population. Additionally, through my job experience I was able to witness how policy impacts the distribution of healthcare services. Access to healthcare is still an issue that leaders in the health industry have not perfected. Being able to impact the lives of others by creating solutions to improve health makes me “feel awake” for now. I will “feel alive” when I successfully develop a solution to improve access to healthcare services for the underserved population.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/09/05/3-questions-to-help-you-align-company-culture-with-core-values/

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