Our shared values, and how they helped us build and grow through a pandemic

In our last two articles, we looked at the role values play in enabling individuals to act. Our involvement in Coaching Reading has also taught us how instrumental they can be for groups.

Almost two years ago, as the pandemic hit, we were a fledgling network. We had enjoyed some good face-to-face meetings, and we were beginning to generate ideas, but it was early days. As we took all our meetings online, it seemed likely that our connections might weaken and our commitment to working together would quickly evaporate.

And yet the opposite happened.

Those online meetings in spring 2020 marked a real shift in our conversations. Yes, they were intense and often confused, but they created an important moment in time for a group of bewildered people to express and share a common goal.

We were all in different ways feeling helpless and disconnected during that first lockdown. We all shared a love of the coaching process and a desire to continue to learn new things about working with people around positive change. None of that felt easy to fulfil at the time, especially as coming together meant having to spend more time online, something we were all resisting.

We were also all looking for some tangible way to contribute something locally to those affected by the pandemic. Several of us stuck with the meetings based on no more than a hunch that Coaching Reading might offer a way for us to honour those values.

Thanks to this hunch, and due to the leadership of founding members Julie Williams and Debs Jeffries, we moved forward our work to create a pool of coaches who could offer free coaching to local charity leaders grappling with the effects of the pandemic. Many local people have since benefitted from this work, and it has strengthened our own commitment to Coaching Reading in the process.

So what might our experience mean for others who need to lead or strengthen groups of people around a shared set of values?

We learned the following:

1.       Moments of pressure, anxiety and stress can threaten the cohesiveness of any group, but if managed well with even closer attention on values and common purpose, they can also forge much stronger, deeper and more resilient connections.
We created time and space for our emotions, and in the process our meetings became much less structured. In the early stages of the pandemic, it was not unusual for us to spend 40 minutes simply checking in with each other. It made us feel like we belonged, and that we could be open with a group that understood. Our values came to the fore, and they gave us a reason to stay involved and a motivation to act.

2.       During a very confusing time, and without any clarity on what Coaching Reading would become, we sat with the ambiguity and trusted that the answers would come. It was our trust in each other and our shared values that made this possible.
Together we explored tasks and activities around which we could live out our values quickly and tangibly. These activities strengthened our relationships and commitment far more than any abstract consensus on our goals or work programme would have achieved.

Coaching Reading is now back to business as usual. We are meeting in person (as well as online) regularly and our meetings have become once again much more structured and focused, based on a foundation of trust and shared values.

With continued support from our partners Connect Reading and Reading Voluntary Action, our pro bono coaching scheme is still running today. It has provided our coaches with a wonderfully meaningful way of supporting our community, and we know from our evaluation that it has been hugely beneficial for those who have taken part.

Taking time to really connect in this values-based way pays dividends. Values aren’t just a set of nice words on a webpage or a funky office poster. They are a way of being that enables engagement, motivation, fulfilment and ultimately positive outcomes for all.

Sarah Leach and Susannah Randall are members of Coaching Reading.

For more of their thoughts on values, see:

Values are fundamental in coaching, but are often where the hard work starts — Coaching Reading

Values are key to mobilising yourself and others to act — Coaching Reading