Openness, responsibility, inclusion, respect, empowerment, ingenuity
In future there will be six key values describing the way members of ETH Zurich research, teach, work and study together. The new integrated approach encompasses the university’s vision and mission – as well as referencing the contributions made by its employees – and thus unites all the factors that shape the university’s culture.
They’ve been finalised: a set of six values have now been approved by the ETH Executive Board, following a broad consultation process across the university. These values lay the foundation for collaboration and daily life at ETH Zurich: openness, responsibility, inclusion, respect, empowerment and ingenuity.
These values do not stand in isolation, but are embedded within an integrated approach centred not only around the university’s mission and vision, but also its key values and skills, and the standard of behaviour expected in the work environment. But let’s take things one step at a time…
Recap: discussion of values
When the ETH Executive Board launched the rETHink project to map out the university’s future organisational development, it commissioned Workstream 6 to initiate a discussion across the entire university about culture and values. The starting point was the original five values embodied in the ETH Charter: openness, diversity, team spirit, responsibility and excellence.
Many of you will remember the initial call to all ETH members to participate in the survey “Taking our pulse”, inviting comments on the university’s existing values. The feedback already revealed that most people agreed with those values. ‘Excellence’ was the most questioned value: is that an actual value in itself, or rather the result of ETH members’ combined efforts, based upon the other values? In addition, some felt that certain values were missing, such as respect.
The next step was to invite the administrative & academic departments, institutes and teams, along with various boards and student associations, to reflect on ETH culture in a series of workshops. Very diverse methods and tools were provided to facilitate the discussion, with moderators on hand to assist if needed. The results were collected on a external page Miroboard, the online collaborative whiteboard platform.
Results of the values discussion
The Workstream 6 project team analysed the findings of the survey and the discussions. Three observations stood out, as summarised by Chris Luebkeman, co-leader of the workstream’s operational management. “First, we found that the discussion initiated on culture and values was well received by ETH members.” The first conclusion from the feedback: ETH would be a better place if the current values were lived out more.
“The discussions also produced the suggestion that more specific values should be developed for ETH that create an even stronger sense of belonging and identity,” says Luebkeman, and gives an example: “The ‘culture of empowerment’, which is a high priority for our university, was repeatedly mentioned.”
The third observation is hardly surprising: ‘excellence’ was not considered to be particularly effective as an orientation point. Although excellence is a hallmark of top-ranking universities, it is also an overused and ill-defined term. “The discussions also showed that excellence on its own – in other words without being combined with our other values – tends to lead to conflict rather than integration,” Luebkeman concludes.
The values of ETH Zurich
Of the five original values, openness and responsibility were included in the new set of values. Diversity became inclusion, a more specific term expressing how we are able to use diversity effectively. Closely linked to this is respect, a value that was brought into the discussion very early on from many different sides.
Everyone agreed that a strong team spirit is a very valuable asset. But what is the basis of a good team spirit? “An attitude built on mutual respect is key,” says Gudela Grote, co-leader of the WS6 team along with Chris Luebkeman. “A team works especially well together when the individual members appreciate the particular skills of their colleagues and everyone is able to contribute their individual strengths,” she adds. In this way, empowerment – also as a reference to an enabling culture – found its way into the set of values.
The only original value contested was excellence: “No one disputed the idea that the university strives for excellence,” Grote stresses. “That’s why we suggested excellence should not be designated a value, but rather embedded within the university’s mission.”
Instead, an additional term was added as a sixth value to reflect the innovative strengths that characterise the university’s identity: ingenuity.
Embedding and living our values on a daily basis
In order to bed down the values and further develop the university culture, Workstream 6 has proposed activities that are simple to organise and integrate into daily university life. “We recommend that ETH members of a research group, institute, administrative unit or even an entire academic department take time to hold an open and detailed discussion about culture, on a regular basis,” says Grote. Other opportunities for focusing on cultural aspects include appraisals in the departments or ETH Executive Board retreats. On an individual level, the university’s culture and values should be part of discussions when new employees join or existing ones leave ETH.
Integrated approach embracing values and competencies
Conduct shaped by values
Along with our key values, social and leadership competencies are vitally important for shaping an institutional culture. While values provide a kind of framework for orienting decisions and actions, competencies are a combination of skills, knowledge and attitudes. Competencies make it possible to act decisively on the basis of our values.
Gudela Grote offers a concrete example to explain the connection between values and competencies: “With the value of ‘openness’, ETH signals the desirability of certain types of behaviour such as ‘showing appreciation’ or ‘learning from other people’s opinions and viewpoints’. These types of behaviour require competencies, such as the ability to put yourself in another person’s situation – a skill the university is keen to encourage.”
Integrated approach embracing values and competencies
Parallel to the discussion of values, another working group was mandated by the Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership to focus on social and leadership skills. The group invited ETH employees from all areas to a series of co-creation workshops, and then gathered a broad range of feedback and compiled their findings into a single proposal with six competencies.
In collaboration with those responsible in Workstream 6, the various factors determining culture were combined into an integrated approach. This created a framework spanning ETH Zurich’s vision and mission, its values and competencies, as well as the standard of conduct expected of ETH members.
“Cultural change is only possible through the sum of many smaller and larger measures,” Grote is convinced. And she stresses once again just how important an institution’s culture is: “Culture is an institution’s strategic success factor that develops of its own accord and cannot simply be imposed.” Only by continuously working on this culture will ETH be able to keep, or even extend, its leading position among international academic institutions.
Further information
The complete findings of the culture discussion, as well as the consequences and recommendations derived from it by Workstream 6, are summarised in the Download Culture Report (PDF, 4.1 MB).
The importance of competencies, and how they should be embedded in daily life at ETH, will be outlined in another “Internal News” article.
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