The Une, Weekly #5 — The Acknowledgement

Hi there, welcome to The Une, Weekly #5. We've written about the existing — and extensive — gap between values and actions in organizations. And how a different approach to values can help make this gap smaller. But there's another truth here: living our values together is prrrretty hard.

But first: meanwhile in the Uneverse
🌱 Our first workshop: we've run one, so now we can give one. For free to a non-profit or impact start-up. Feel welcome to forward this to anyone who should know.

💡Value Impact Study: we're setting up a research project to study the impact of our value compass with AI support on decision making. More on this soon.

🧰 Value Design Practitioner: after the summer we will offer the first Value Design introduction workshop for professionals (strategists, facilitators, change experts, etc) who want to learn how to integrate it in their own work. Interested? Let us know.

Now for some human messiness...

The uncomfortable
Who wants an organization where innovation, creativity, trust and accountability are thriving?
Almost all hands up? If not all?

So why are so many organizations struggling with this?

There's not one reason of course.
But we could sum it up by saying: because it's not easy.
Harder than any framework, workshop or wall poster can solve on its own.

Assuming we're not all well-trained Buddhist monks, for most of us the following are not always the most comfortable things to do:

👁️ To look reality in the eye.
🪞 To look at ourselves in the mirror.
💚 To be aware and honest about what we truly care for.
🤝 To collaborate with each other and address friction constructively. If at all.

They're uncomfortable because all these things require dealing with uncertainty.
With error.
With feedback.
With unpredictability.
With each other's messiness.

And for us being humans, sometimes it's easier to deal with the lack of new ideas, failing markets, unreasonable deadlines, disengaged teams and coffee-corner gossip than to address the cause of these issues.

The unfinished
This is not a judgment of leaders not doing their work properly. Nor an attempt to oversimplify and offer a quick fix. It's an acknowledgement that even our attempts to do better are part of the same unfinished work of figuring this out.

When we have a shared language for what drives why we are together in the first place, how we want to contribute to the world and what that looks like, at least we have a strong basis to work from.

That's what value design does: it brings what we care for to the plane of behavior.

It makes values specific enough to act on and honest enough to be challenged. Not as statements of beliefs, but as conditions for creating value. Principles that direct real choices, name real trade-offs, and make visible what we're actually protecting when things get complicated.

That's what makes the discomfort worth it. Because values that can survive a hard budget conversation, or a moment of real disagreement, are doing something. They orient everyone to what matters most.

What no compass solves
A value compass helps.
It makes the gap between what we care for and what we do smaller.
It brings coherence where there is drift.

But it doesn't make the work completely comfortable.

Resistance, doubt and fear still show up.
Things we didn't know were there still surface.

The human messiness doesn't magically disappear, we just meet it with something to steer by.
Something we care about.

What it still asks of us is courage, curiosity, compassion and connection.
These are not nice-to-haves, but actual work. Work that no framework solves.

And maybe that's the point this week: yes, value design gives us a way to keep figuring it out together, but the figuring out will still be humanly messy. Not a more comfortable process. But one that's worth it.

Curious what that looks like in practice? We'd love to show you.

👋 hello@une.eco

Move as one. For the benefit of all. — Laurens & Jorn