Understanding 7 Cups Culture (LDP Discussion #5)
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Hello Leadership Crew!
We are wrapping up the first course today with our last discussion on culture. Look for more instructions in this post to take the final evaluation for the course to your graduation. Once you have this course complete, you will be 20% done the Leadership Development Program. Good work!
Let's start by looking at the wikipedia definition of culture:
--Culture (/ÃkÃltÃÃr/) is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.[1]
We take culture seriously on 7 Cups because it is the heart of how we operate. A wise person once said: You teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are. We can have all of the best training content we want, but if our culture is not strong, then we will not be successful in growing a thriving, compassionate, community that will make a global impact.
Every organization has a culture whether by design or by default. When culture (including values and mission are not called out or made explicit, the organization defaults to an implicit or unstated culture. The unnamed culture is not always great for the end users or the community. An example of a common and implicit cultural rule or norm is that the person that makes the most money or the organization is the most important. People that work in this organization then, naturally, because it is the culture, start organizing themselves around ways to make more and more money. The ones at the top of the hierarchy are the ones that make the most money. 7 Cups cares less about money and more about compassion. We call out compassion and celebrate compassionate people because that is central to the work we do.
Please read our guide here to deeply understand our culture. We have made it explicit because we believe it is important to help us all be accountable to what we stand for and believe in. As leaders on 7 Cups, you will be models that emulate our culture and values.
One theme you'll notice in our guide is that it is very proactive, which is the opposite of reactive. We act first, we design first, we implement first in order to make an impact. Companies that react allow events to shape them; we instead try to focus on where we can have influence and shape events before they shape our community.
Part of being proactive is critical because building culture online is more challenging than building a culture offline. Offline interpersonal and group relationships are easier in a number of ways. People are generally much better behaved when they are right in front of you and it is easier for people to sync up and work towards a common goal. Online cultures have less of these natural strengths so you have to be extra proactive to build a strong culture. Look at most communities on the Internet. Unfortunately, they tend to devolve and become less than safe places with a lot of hate, sexual, and harmful behaviors. Our training system, the badges, word filters, moderators, etc. (dozens of behaviors we do) are all designed to proactively build and reinforce our culture so that we do not experience this same kind of entropy. Internet culture can be like an escalator going down. You have to be very proactive and take 2 or 3 steps up at a time to maintain and strengthen gains. As a leader on 7 Cups, you will be part of that group that gets behind us and enables us to continue making forward momentum.
That provides the broader background context to why we care so much about our culture and values at 7 Cups. They are core to our work.
To help make it more real, in this post, please highlight the 3 most important things you learned from our guide and why they are important to you.
After posting, please...
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@GlenM
I will agree to most of the fellow leadership trainees and highlight trust as the primary value on 7 cups but in our everyday lives as well. I believe that misunderstandings happen, especially in an online environement and I think that we all have spece to learn and improve ourselves. I completely agree that trust is valuable only when it's bidirectional and that we all face challenging situations sometimes so we should keep in mind values such as good intentions, selflessness and non prejudice.
This is connected with the second thing that I want to highlight which is friendliness and conciousness. It is important to stay polite and try to cooperate with others create a safe and helpful community. It is important to be reliable and respect others and their efforts. I would like to underline that politeness is a sign of respect. We all deserve to be understood but we also owe to understand and respect others. Empathy is something that we should remember because it's not only crucial to put ourselves in someone else's shoes to help them, but also to understand how they feel and remember all the times that we've been through challenging times ourselves.
As a conclusion I would like to underline that our work matters. Personally I have been through challenging times and I wish I had someone to listen to me. I'm glad that I can offer my help to people that may be getting through challenges. I understand that there may be people in need that aren't able to afford therapy and that makes us even more important for them. The fact that there are people that may be counting on us and are happier after a chat makes us overcome our own fears, manage things and feel stronger. It's important to continue and try hard to make the world a better place!
Thank you for your post! I enjoyed reading your insights.. I do agree with how far friendless can go, and how valuable it is on 7 cups ❤️@SofiaT2000
The 3 most important things I learned from the guide, and why the are important to me would be:
1. We expect failure I think majority of people can say at some point in their life they have feared failing at something, whether it be something big or small. I know myself, I fear failure a lot, as I often forget that it’s okay to fail! And reading this guide has shown me even more so that it is okay to fail. If at first you don’t succeed, try again! Failing does not always mean that you did not try your best, it’s just something that sometimes happens, and rather than seeing it as a negative thing, we should learn to see it as a positive learning experience!
2. Trust Trust is such an important key role to deleveloping healthy relationships with anyone, whether it be friends, people you work with, your teammates on 7 cups and even the members you communicate with. However, it’s something is very easy to break/take away. I myself have a bit of trust issues, from both people in real life and people on 7 cups breaking it. But, it’s important to remember that even with trust issues, you must remember to keep others trust.
3. Take care of yourself I am including this one as this is something I struggle with, and often forget about how important it is! Self care is so vital and important, it’s something I was not fully aware of even until I joined 7 cups. I’ve always struggled with learning to take care of myself before I take care of others. I never want to let anyone down, or miss the opportunity of giving some one support who needs it. However, I have experienced burn out several times now, and I am starting to learn how important it is so practice self care
@GlenM
Three things I learned from the 7 cups guide are:
a) Failure is expected and could be seen as an opportunity to learn
b) Importance of high trust and high warmth in any organisation
c) Working on strength based is counterproductive and benefit both the individual and the organisation
Please highlight the 3 most important things you learned and why they are important to you:
Use your strengths to your advantage, everyone has different strengths and when we all band togther we all level out eachother weaknesses and it becomes just our strengths that are showcased in the best way possible
Prioritzing and problem solving is key to being a successful listener on 7 cups, and we should aim to solve the problems that matter and not get discouraged if at first the solution isn't straight forward
Collaborating is key to success and we should take advantage of the diverse and wide range of people on this website! And celebrate all our differences.
The purpose of 7 cups is to care for people with fewer financial resources.
There are high expectations for listeners and high warmth in the community.
Everyone should try their best and take accountability for their mistakes.
@GlenM
Three things I learned from the 7 cups guide are:
1. When one is engaging in work that is strengths-based, it benefits both the organization and the individual.
2. The importance of building trust and warmth in any organization, more so at 7 cups. The welcoming nature of 7 cups is maintained by building an environment of trust and warmth.
3. Support and collaboration are essential to achieve goals on 7 cups.
Going through the guide, I could connect to the points mentioned below.
1. Trust
I feel faith is one of the beautiful aspects of human nature. Its the belief in other individuals which brings in a sense of togetherness in society. I strongly feel it takes real effort to reach a position where you can gain the trust of other individuals. And I also feel its a great honour when one finds you capable enough to confide in you and it's our moral responsibility to not betray that trust in any way.
2. Accountability
When it comes to accountability, I again feel its one of the attribute of human nature which brings in a sense of discipline in overall functioning. An individual needs to accountable in both senses. A person needs to be known about their good work and also their fallbacks in cases some mistakes are owing to varied reasons. Accountability brings in a sense of responsibility and ownership. And its when you feel you truly are a part of an organization where you own making a difference, it makes you function better with more enthusiasm.
3. Warmth, Friendliness and Conscientiousness
Now, these aspects are something which I feel are the essence in the way I operated on 7cups since the time I joined. I strongly believe, an open mindset is a must while listening. It's not about understanding or relating to the issues at hand entirely. For me, it's about having a mind open enough to try. It's about having patience, warmth towards the individual. It did work wonders for me while having conversations here. I feel in a society each individual deserves some patience and warmth.
@wishfulMoment42
I agree that trust is incredibly important and we have to work hard to cultivate it.
-taking care of those who are not financially able to use other resources is important to me because not everyone can afford therapy or things like that.
-being strength-based helps you grow and focus on a positive outcome
-accountability is great since you feel like you aren't in this alone
The 3 most important things that I took from the guide are as follows:
1) Friendliness and Conscientiousness: This means a lot to me because both qualities develop a sense of trust within the community at 7 Cups. Being aware of your own attitude is essential to fostering a healthy and happy group of people.
2) Self-efficacy and Mastery: Development of skills is very important to me as well because self-improvement is an integral part of the way that I gauge my growth as a person. Finding challenges that match my skill level or are slightly above my skill level motivate me to pursue higher levels of achievement.
3) I Have a Gas Tank and 7 Cups Has a Gas Tank: The idea of a collective gas tank which my own gas tank contributes to. It's important for me to have a full gas tank prior to starting my work here at 7 Cups so that I can ensure that my needs are being met before I try and help others.
@emily2803
It's great that you have a thorough awareness of what motivates you, that is a really useful skill.
1. Trust
Trust is incredibly important on 7 Cups, as members are often confiding deeply personal things. However, it is also important among leaders as we must trust one another to be performing our roles to the best of our ability so that the community is safe and can progress.
2. High expectations and high warmth
I learnt about the importance of having both high expectations and high warmth and am excited to experience these values throughout my leadership journey.
3. Expect failure
This is a hard one to handle, no one likes to fail! However it's great to see it is acknowledged as part of the process.
