With 2017 well underway, we sat down for part 2 of our workshop with Erica Dorn of The Good Work Institute. If you missed our blog post on part I, Erica came by the Radish Lab office and assisted us in identifying and exercising our company’s mission and values. At the end of part I, we were left with a list of our shared values and a rough outline of our mission statement. This time, we not only refined our mission statement, but also revisited our values to see what had changed and what remained the same.
Our Mission + Vision for the Future
To start things off, we had an in-depth discussion about our team accord. How can we best work and operate together on a daily basis? With a team as small and intimate as ours, the ability to communicate clearly and respectfully with one another is vital. Through self and group reflection, we were able to pinpoint which communication skills are necessary for us to maintain a positive collaborative environment.
Accord: A way of operating and together daily
- Practice appreciation / Assume good intentions
- Be you or try something new / permission to stumble
- Step up or step back / Invite in
- Solutions oriented
- Practice Trust and directness
- Find a way into presence
- Reflection as a skill
- Celebrate small wins
Listening Tools shared by the group:
- Repeat what what you heard
- Ask clarifying questions
- Use visualizations
- Practice empathy not projecting
- Mind your body language other other cues that show you are listening such as eye contact and attentive body language
- Practice non-interruption
- Intend to not ramble when speaking
The next step for the Radishes was to put our mission and vision in writing. After a hefty amount of brainstorming and editing as a group, we came up with the following:
- Mission:
We empower social change organizations to amplify their missions through creative collaboration, storytelling, and technology that activates their communities. - Vision:
A world where a shared mindset of the common good governs personal and societal choices, enabling equity, social justice, and respect for the environment on a global scale.
Even though we’re really happy with how these statements ultimately turned out, we will surely continue to refine it as Radish grows and evolves.
Our Core Values
Lastly, we narrowed down which core values are the backbone of Radish Lab’s mission and vision. As we carry out our mission and move towards our vision, we are committed to embracing the following values:
- Adventure:
Starting something without knowing exactly what’s going to happen or how it’s going to work is the essence of adventure. It keeps us courageous, open to all possibilities, and ready to improvise and adapt. - Collaboration:
Teamwork is at the heart of who we are. Our most creative concepts surface when we’re brainstorming internally as a group, and our clients bring some pretty good ideas to the table, too. - Compassion:
Invested in far more than just the end-product, we care about the process, the relationship, and the humans behind the work. - Genuineness:
There’s nothing cooler than just being yourself. From our designs to our code, we’re sincerely passionate and our work is unmistakably Radish. - Social Justice:
We envision the world as having a more equal distribution of power, and we believe that access to good storytelling and communication is a powerful and necessary tool to achieve this. - Magic:
Magic happens when you work with people you like on projects that inspire you. It’s finding something you didn’t expect to, it’s being surprised, it’s uncovering the solution to the unsolvable problem. And maybe a little glitter too.
The Takeaway
While the language may have changed a bit, this session revealed (unsurprisingly) that the essence of our core values remains the same: We want to be able to grow and work together while being true to ourselves and our shared vision of fostering a more equitable world. We are so grateful for Erica’s thoughtful guidance, and are excited to be heading into the summer with an even greater focus and consensus on everything we want to accomplish!