This chapter in the book, Time To Get Real! asks you to consider the company you work for and any organizations for which you volunteer. It doesn’t matter if you are working for compensation or freely giving of your time and effort in a volunteer activity, work is work. Whether it is a business, government, or a nonprofit organization, a mission or purpose, values, and culture will exist within that organization. Aligning yourself with your organization, whether receiving compensation or not, is important for your own personal comfort and commitment.

Look at the mission of the organization for whom you work or volunteer. In the book, we ask you to compare it to what you have learned about yourself – values, purpose, life balance, etc. Does the organization's mission help to maximize your strengths while providing development opportunities? Does the mission conflict in any way with your own purpose or is it complimentary? Research has shown that when people match their personal values to the values of the company, employees are happier and more engaged. In addition, mission and values alignment is a quality that is common to high-performance organizations.

Corporate values represent the guiding principles of the organization’s culture. These values shape the culture of the company, which is represented by consistent, observable patterns of behavior in organizations. It is “the story” that is embedded in the people of the organization and that story is reinforced by the values and rituals seen every day.

For example, some organizations might focus on teamwork as a value. But, if staff members are highly competitive, don’t share information or support one another on team projects, it’s pretty easy to discern lip service is being given to this value. In other organizations, a value might be the development of human resources. That organization might have a substantial number of training programs, provide for rotational assignments, and have a tuition reimbursement policy. The values and company behavior alignment is more easily seen here.

Think about this for your own situation and organization. Just as there is no perfect life, there is no perfect job. We are quite fortunate when we can get 80% of what we want in our workplace, and this, in turn, gives us the strength to handle the other 20%. If in your case you have a good match with your company on mission, values, and culture, see if you can get what you want where you are by tweaking one or two things to make it more comfortable for you.

However, if you are in a state of conflict and you are uncomfortable in your workplace, then have the courage to make the move you need to make to achieve your life and career goals. The Life and Career Planning Model© featured in the book Time To Get Real! will help you develop your plan to move forward in a positive direction.