Have you ever had this happen to you? I was chatting with a senior leader asking him about their organisational values. “Yeh, sure, we have a set of values. Let me see, where did I put the annual report?” He then ferreted around his office to find the list of values.

There are some things we should have in our head (and in our heart and gut) while others are better just written down. We need these things in our head because, and you’ve heard this many times before, the world continues to be more complex and unpredictable. So everyday we are faced with new and unpredictable situations where decisions are needed. We wont have time to re-plan. So we will have to rely on the things in our head (our mental models, beliefs, attitudes,values) to do good things for yourself and the company. Here are four things to have in your head:

Values – we know what’s really valued in an organisation by the actions people take; especially those people with power. So lists of values such as integrity, transparency, professionalism are worthless if people can’t see them lived and when they are transgressed consequences happen. Now you can do nothing and just hope your values support your business, but that’s a high-risk strategy. As Gary Hamel once said: “Every organization is “values-driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?”

Direction – you should really understand your strategic direction otherwise how do you decide what to say “no” to. But don’t be fooled into thinking that because you know your strategy the future is crystal clear like a large painted target on the side of a barn. A useful strategic direction is less like a bulls-eye target to be hit and more like a range of desirable destinations to be discovered (on my diagram the destinations lie on the dotted line arc between the two arrows). Strategic stories are useful because they provide context, explain why and show a range of possibilities and avoid the target metaphor.

Identity – Are we local or are we global? Are we a services business or a product business? Are we more like a rolls royce or more like a mini? Knowing the business identity and the identity of your part of the business and how that compliments other identities, helps you connect and complement others inside and beyond the boundaries of the enterprise.

Purpose – I was lucky enough to have the following coincidence. One afternoon I met with the CEO of an insurance company and asked what the purpose of his business. He thought about it for a while and said, “you know what, we are here to sell insurance.” Really? Does that get your people out of bed in the morning so they can make a difference? I don’t think so. The very next day I happened to have another meeting with a second CEO of an insurance company and I asked the same question. The CEO shot back at me, “we help Australians build a privately funded safety net.” Now, that seemed more interesting. It’s true that some businesses have an obvious purpose where people really feel they are making a difference to other people’s lives. But whatever you enterprise it’s important that your purpose inspires your people to make a difference. At Anecdote our purpose is to help bring humanity back to organisations.

I mentioned at the beginning of the post that there are some things that are best written down. Following on from the ideas of David Allen and his Getting Things Done approach, projects and tasks are best written down in a trusted system so you can get these things out of your head and stop them from cluttering your mind.