I was in the park with my 5 year old daughter and she was misbehaving. I lost my patience and I called her a spoiled brat.

She became really upset and she asked me – “Why are you calling me names?”

It stopped me dead in my tracks. I remembered some parenting advice I’d once read saying don’t label the child, label the behaviour.

So I apologised and explained it was her actions that I was annoyed about, and that behaving in that way was not ok.

It got me thinking about the meaning we give labels in a business context - job titles, values, mission statements - and the power and importance we attach to them.

behaviour-shapes-an-organisation.jpg Behaviour shapes an organisation

In reality, it is behaviours that shape an organisation - it’s culture, it’s work environment, it’s customer service - not the labels we ascribe to it.

Ask yourself, how well are your organisational “labels” aligned to the behaviours present in your business every day? Do they match all the way? Maybe some of the way? Maybe not at all?

Does your business or project explicitly call out the good behaviours expected and the bad behaviours that won’t be tolerated?

Or are they only implicitly defined? Is there a common understanding of these expectations?

Now think about what your business or project could achieve it you had alignment in what you label as important on the one hand, and what your organisational behaviours are saying about what is important on the other.

Think about the impact that will have on your working environment and your customer relationships.

Now that’s definitely something worth discovering in pursuit of realising your potential.