Is this a misstep or an opportunity? 

You’ve joined a new organization, and been given an amazing opportunity. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, a recognition of your skills and experience, something for which you’ve been waiting for years. So you dive right in…and scrape your face on the bottom of the pool, in the most painful way possible.

Maybe you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, or share something publicly that you realize on reflection you should have kept to yourself. Maybe in trying to impress, you are caught exaggerating. Maybe in your exuberance you get carried away and say or do something ill-advised. Whatever it is, you are left squirming, wishing you could take it all back, convinced you’ve thrown away the opportunity. And the question that keeps rattling around in your head like one of those horrible songs that take hold of your brain is “why, why, WHY did I do that?????”

When we can take a step back, these are actually wonderful opportunities for growth, albeit sometimes painful ones. But the pain is there for a reason – it’s trying to get your attention.

I had an experience like this recently. Here is some of what I learned about working with values, and some ways you can learn and grow from such situations, however painful.

What I Learned About Myself

I learned a lot from working with my own values. Honesty and openness are huge for me, as are integrity, relationship and loyalty (among others, and not necessarily in that order). But values can be challenging to live by, particularly in organizations.

Take honesty, for instance. I try not to say anything about someone else that I won’t say to their face. This is difficult enough to live by in my own life. In an organization where not everyone shares my values, I can get tripped up when I assume others share my values, and act accordingly. There is a fine line to walk between idealistically adhering to values, and stepping on other people’s egos, which are likely to be more fragile than we realize for reasons we aren’t aware of, particularly in an organization where ones livelihood is involved.  

Which is related to my value around openness. The way I see it, we humans have a lot to learn. As I said above, when there’s pain, it is because something is trying to get our attention. I therefore believe it is better to be as open as we can with each other about the painful parts of our journeys – rather than trying to put a superficial façade over our confusion and misery – because then we can support each other as we learn; we will learn more, and faster; and we will probably learn better. The more open we can be with each other, the healthier, happier and more connected we will be to our global community. I realize it’s a huge goal, but I believe it’s actually vital to the health of our world.

I am also extremely loyal, to the extent that if someone I respect gives me a task, my goal has always been to complete that task no matter what the cost, to me or to anyone else around me. There's a hidden value here of integrity – I want to give the best I have to give, even if it rubs someone else up the wrong way.
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