Is Your Team Issue a Problem of Content or of Values?
pixabay.com
When working with a team member, it's important to gauge whether the issue they're exhibiting is fixable or not.
And the question to ask, in this regard, is whether it's a values-based problem or a content-based development issue?
Content-based development issues suggest a technical deficiency. A skills gap, a lack of training, an inability to grasp the fundamentals of a specific capability. These types of problems are fixable. There are courses that can be taken, apprenticeships that will allow for observation and understanding. Content-based issues are solvable.
Values-based problems, on the other hand, are not quite so clear cut. Values based issues relate to dependability, reliability, integrity, open-mindedness, honesty, and more. They are formed on the back of years of personal development, observation, education (both formal and - perhaps more importantly - informal).
By the time you reach adulthood, you either have them, or you don't. If you do, it's evident. If you don't, well, it's not so easy to teach.
And so, I'd argue that values-based problems are not fixable. Certainly not easily, and many times, not at all.
If the issue between you and me is that you don't trust me, then thats going to be very hard to resolve.
If I don't perceive you as reliable, it will take a lot for me to fundamentally (intrinsically) change my point of view.
Granted, sometimes people exhibit what we see as values-based issues because of a temporal anomaly. Personal issues, health problems, considerations in their personal lives, etc., can take someone out of their element, and cause them to act in ways that "aren't them". We need to be conscious of that, and allow for that. We are human, after all.
But beyond those situations, and especially in situations where we see sustained value issues, we need to ask the hard question.
Is it solvable?
I'd argue, that, almost always, values based problems are not solvable. And when thats the case,it's critical to separate the individual from the team, the department, the organization, as quickly and efficiently as possible.
