DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Values are most powerful when they are more than words on a page. They provide a shared understanding of how people work together, make decisions, navigate challenges, and hold themselves and one another accountable. Values become especially important during periods of change. A merger, a leadership transition, or a stretch of fast growth disrupts how people are used to working together, while also opening a rare window to reset an organization or team’s culture on purpose.
But values only work when they move off the page. A value everyone nods at and no one can define does not change behavior. Common value words like trust, respect, collaboration, and transparency mean different things to different people. Bringing values to life means getting specific about what they look like in practice. For example, what does trust look like in a leadership meeting? How does collaboration show up when there are competing priorities? What behaviors demonstrate respect? How can a team recognize when it may need to reconnect with one of its shared values?
The often forgotten component of creating shared values
Creating a list of values as a team generally feels productive and leaves people feeling energized. What happens next is much harder. Values create actual value only when they translate into shared behaviors that have clear expectations and accountability mechanisms.
Most teams tend to skip determining what shared values look like in practice, treating the creation of value words as the finish line. This is why so many value statements end up listed on a website or framed on the wall,
https://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Turning-Values-Into-How-You-Actually-Work-Image.png12001200dfalliancehttps://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DFA-Humanizing-Work-Cultures-scaled.pngdfalliance2026-07-31 12:28:172026-07-31 12:28:17Action Step – Turning Values Into How You Actually Work
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Organizations spend significant time evaluating employee performance, yet many overlook one of the most powerful sources of leadership insight: the people being led.
Upward reviews create a structured opportunity for employees to provide feedback to managers, leaders, and other senior professionals about their leadership, communication, delegation, coaching, and relationship-building practices. Done well, upward reviews are a reflection of an organization’s commitment to accountability, trust, and continuous improvement.
….
Three Conditions That Make Upward Reviews Successful
Psychological Safety:
Employees must trust that they can provide honest feedback without fear of retaliation or damage to their careers. If employees believe their feedback can be traced back to them, they are less likely to engage honestly.
Psychological safety doesn’t happen automatically because a survey is anonymous. It’s built through consistent communication, transparency about the process, and leadership behaviors that demonstrate feedback is welcomed.
The strongest safeguard is the design of the process. Rather than asking people to merely trust that the upward review process protects their anonymity, show them how the process itself actually works. Walk them through each stage, laying out the process from start to finish, including what the people running the process can see and what the final report looks like. When employees understand how the process actually works, they can feel more comfortable sharing their authentic feedback…
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The organizations that will move forward most effectively will be those building the internal capacity to lead change well.
As we look ahead, we can assume the one thing that will not change is change itself. We are living and working in a super-cycle of change. Organizations are navigating rapid technology acceleration, evolving workforce expectations, shifting business priorities, and ongoing disruption, often all at once.
In this kind of environment, the ability to lead through uncertainty and help people thrive becomes an essential skill.
….
This Action Step invites leaders to assess and strengthen their organization’s “change readiness” muscles by evaluating how effectively their teams, managers, systems, and culture support change in practice.
….
Set aside time to conduct a simple organizational Change Readiness Audit.
Step 1: Identify a Current or Upcoming Change Initiative
Select one organizational shift currently underway or expected in the near future. This could include:
https://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Change-Readiness-Audit-Image.png12001200dfalliancehttps://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DFA-Humanizing-Work-Cultures-scaled.pngdfalliance2026-05-29 11:51:282026-05-29 11:51:28Action Step – The Change Readiness Audit: Preparing Your Organization for Continuous Change
Action Step – Turning Values Into How You Actually Work
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Values are most powerful when they are more than words on a page. They provide a shared understanding of how people work together, make decisions, navigate challenges, and hold themselves and one another accountable. Values become especially important during periods of change. A merger, a leadership transition, or a stretch of fast growth disrupts how people are used to working together, while also opening a rare window to reset an organization or team’s culture on purpose.
But values only work when they move off the page. A value everyone nods at and no one can define does not change behavior. Common value words like trust, respect, collaboration, and transparency mean different things to different people. Bringing values to life means getting specific about what they look like in practice. For example, what does trust look like in a leadership meeting? How does collaboration show up when there are competing priorities? What behaviors demonstrate respect? How can a team recognize when it may need to reconnect with one of its shared values?
The often forgotten component of creating shared values
Creating a list of values as a team generally feels productive and leaves people feeling energized. What happens next is much harder. Values create actual value only when they translate into shared behaviors that have clear expectations and accountability mechanisms.
Most teams tend to skip determining what shared values look like in practice, treating the creation of value words as the finish line. This is why so many value statements end up listed on a website or framed on the wall,
Action Step: Upward Reviews – Building Cultures of Accountability, Trust & Continuous Improvement
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Organizations spend significant time evaluating employee performance, yet many overlook one of the most powerful sources of leadership insight: the people being led.
Upward reviews create a structured opportunity for employees to provide feedback to managers, leaders, and other senior professionals about their leadership, communication, delegation, coaching, and relationship-building practices. Done well, upward reviews are a reflection of an organization’s commitment to accountability, trust, and continuous improvement.
….
Three Conditions That Make Upward Reviews Successful
Employees must trust that they can provide honest feedback without fear of retaliation or damage to their careers. If employees believe their feedback can be traced back to them, they are less likely to engage honestly.
Psychological safety doesn’t happen automatically because a survey is anonymous. It’s built through consistent communication, transparency about the process, and leadership behaviors that demonstrate feedback is welcomed.
The strongest safeguard is the design of the process. Rather than asking people to merely trust that the upward review process protects their anonymity, show them how the process itself actually works. Walk them through each stage, laying out the process from start to finish, including what the people running the process can see and what the final report looks like. When employees understand how the process actually works, they can feel more comfortable sharing their authentic feedback…
Members: Read the full version of this Action Step in the Member Resource Center.
To read this entire Action Step become a DFA member.
Action Step – The Change Readiness Audit: Preparing Your Organization for Continuous Change
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The organizations that will move forward most effectively will be those building the internal capacity to lead change well.
As we look ahead, we can assume the one thing that will not change is change itself. We are living and working in a super-cycle of change. Organizations are navigating rapid technology acceleration, evolving workforce expectations, shifting business priorities, and ongoing disruption, often all at once.
In this kind of environment, the ability to lead through uncertainty and help people thrive becomes an essential skill.
….
This Action Step invites leaders to assess and strengthen their organization’s “change readiness” muscles by evaluating how effectively their teams, managers, systems, and culture support change in practice.
….
Set aside time to conduct a simple organizational Change Readiness Audit.
Step 1: Identify a Current or Upcoming Change Initiative
Select one organizational shift currently underway or expected in the near future. This could include:
….
Members: Read the full version of this Action Step in the Member Resource Center.
To read this entire Action Step become a DFA member.