Our Values: Building a Purpose-Driven Culture
At Avenues Australia, the journey to define our collective values has reflected our commitment to building a purpose-driven organisational culture. Crafting these values felt comparable to searching for the meaning of life itself. While we can easily recognise what we appreciate or dislike in hindsight, the challenge lies in distilling these experiences into a clear, meaningful set of values that guide our actions and aspirations.
Before we could craft our organisational values, we needed to ask ourselves, “Why do organisations exist?” and more specifically, “Why do organisations in the human services industry exist? Why are we here?” The answer might seem obvious—organisations exist to make money, and in the human services industry, they exist to "help people." When interviewing candidates for service delivery roles, it is common for us to hear, “I want to help people” or “I want a job where I can make a difference.” Understanding why we build organisations with complex structures and sustain them over long periods—ideally for 100 years to infinity—is as crucial as contemplating the meaning of life itself. Most people assume, organisations like Avenues Australia in the Human Services industry exist to “help people”. While this is an important result of our existence, it was important to delve deeper and find the real reasons for our being. In his famous 1960 speech to Hewlett-Packard’s training group, company co-founder David Packard articulated this very well. Packard inevitably came to the conclusion that a group of people get together and exist as an institution that we call an organisation so they are able to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish separately. In other words, the underlying driver for most organisation’s existence is to collectively make a contribution to society by making a product or to give a service which is of great value to others. The mission must be to deliver this product or service in a way that cannot be done by a single person. How each organisation goes about bringing this to life depends on the problem that needs to be solved and the structure of the industry. With an increasingly volatile and uncertain regulatory environment that leads to a high velocity of systemic change and complex service delivery conditions; articulating and connecting to purpose and collective values is crucial in navigating the pervasive structural shifts in the human services industry.
At Avenues Australia, our Purpose is guided by ‘The Avenues Way’ - our set of collective core values. Without our values, achieving our purpose would be impossible, and thus are interchangable. Our Purpose has been perfected over the years from observing what we do well, what we don’t do well, what our clients expect from us, and what motivates us everyday (see below).
Avenues Australia: Our Purpose
We wanted to know how our values could enable us to achieve our purpose. How could our values be something that we could bring to life in every interaction and every decision? We decided to utilise the Values in Action (VIA) framework to collectively discover our values and bring them to life. Rooted in positive psychology, the VIA tool, developed by psychologists Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Christopher Peterson, goes beyond traditional values assessments. Instead of simply brainstorming aspirational statements, it emphasises the intrinsic strengths and virtues that define us as individuals by assessing how we embody and act out our values.
The VIA framework identifies 24 character strengths grouped under six broad virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence. Unlike other assessments that often emphasise external largely aspirational competencies, VIA focuses on positive attributes we live through our actions that contribute to overall life satisfaction. By harnessing these strengths, we are able to cultivate a deeper sense of purpose and fulfilment.
Through collaborative organisational workshops and ongoing individual assessments, each team member at Avenues Australia conducts a VIA assessment. Their results reflect their personal values, which are then integrated into an organisation-wide values map. This process highlights the diversity of strengths within our team and reveals a notable convergence of two key values: Honesty and Kindness. Almost all our employees have ‘Honesty’ and ‘Kindness’ as their top 5 strength/value. Our top 5 collective values are:
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For Avenues Australia, honesty involves more than just truth-telling. It encompasses being genuine, presenting oneself authentically, and taking full responsibility for one’s actions and feelings. It requires alignment across all areas of life, ensuring consistency between our professional roles, community involvement, and personal lives. This self-concordance fosters integrity and trust, creating an environment of openness and trust.
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Kindness, another prominent collective value in our assessments, is about broadly supporting others with generosity, compassion, and nurturing care. It involves listening with empathy, offering assistance, and providing support in various ways. At Avenues Australia, kindness is a cornerstone of our interactions, guiding us to act with empathy and moral responsibility towards our colleagues, clients, and the wider community.
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It is no surprise that “Humour” was the third highest collective value in our organisation. Humor for us involves seeing the bright-side (and often lighter side) in various situations with colleagues and clients. It acts as a social lubricant, enhancing team dynamics and aiding in the achievement of group goals. While other strengths might be crucial for tackling specific high level organisational objectives, humour, though not always essential, helps fostering positive social interactions. It also serves as a valuable tool for coping with distressing situations, something all too familiar in the social sector. Humor includes the ability to make others smile or laugh and maintaining a cheerful perspective on adversity, which helps sustain a positive mood even in tough times. Humour ( and a healthy dose of sarcasm) has helped our team and clients get through the most volatile, often stressful, periods of significant shifts in government policy.
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At Avenues Australia, the value of Perspectiveis embodied through a commitment to holistic decision-making, where our team consistently considers the long-term impact of our collective actions on clients, colleagues, and the wider community. By focusing on the bigger picture, we aim to offer well-rounded advice, reflecting a deep understanding of the broader context. Our team engages in reflective practice, learning from past experiences and applying those lessons to future situations, ensuring that our work aligns with our core values. This perspective-driven approach also fosters a culture of continuous learning and growth, encouraging the integration of diverse viewpoints to enrich our collective wisdom.
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At Avenues Australia, the value of Curiosity is lived out through exploration, discovery, and continuous learning. The team actively seeks out new ideas, experiences, and activities, whether it's experimenting with innovative approaches, exploring new ways to support clients, or engaging with emerging trends in the industry. We embrace opportunities to learn, whether through professional development, or simply engaging in conversations that broaden our understanding. Curiosity drives us to ask questions, seek out new perspectives, and stay open to fresh ideas, ensuring that our work remains dynamic and responsive to the needs of those we serve.
As we mapped the top 5 individual strengths into our organisational values, two overarching virtues emerged as the foundation of our collective identity: Courage, Humanity and Transcendence. At Avenues Australia, Courage encompasses the strength of Honesty, and involves our will to pursue goals despite opposition and adverse government policies and complex service delivery. Humanity is reflected in our interpersonal strengths and our dedication to treating everyone with compassion, creating a nurturing environment, and prioritising the well-being of our team and those we serve. ‘Transcendence’ allows our team to connect with something greater than ourselves, fostering a sense of meaning, purpose, and appreciation for life.
The Avenues Way, was developed by identifying and mapping the strengths and values of each team member. These values serve as our collective principles for achieving our purpose. We aim for our colleagues, clients, and partner organisations to see our values in action.
The Avenues Way
The process of using the VIA framework has allowed us to move beyond surface-level values and gain a true understanding of the core collective strengths driving our teams. We have established a resilient, compassionate culture that aligns with our purpose. These values are more than just statements—they are lived every day, guiding our decisions, actions, and interactions, and driving us to make a positive impact in all that we do.
