Values that make this community strong

Values are very personal things - measures of our judgement and governors of our behaviour. They’re like irresistible magnets that draw people together or push them apart. Shared well, they make us more resilient in the face of challenges and we all know they’re so powerful that some will go to extremes for the ones they truly cherish.

That’s why organisations that take values seriously get the very best out of the people who make up the community. They really do drive performance.

At the UK Coworking Assembly, we share the values developed by people in the coworking movement across Europe - they are: 
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- Openness
- Community
- Collaboration
- Accessibility
- Sustainability

and holding these values together are commitments to participation, learning and action.

Understanding what each values means in practice is the key to the performance part. If the values make it obvious what we ought to do in any given situation, then we'll  get the best out of each other, and the best out of this community as a whole. That's what we want to do.

So here's our ask: When you're next having a meeting with somebody else in this community - please look out for the values in action.
Did they guide you at all?
Is (or was) it easy to apply them?
Can you look back and see you made the 'right' choices? 

We'll use your experiences to set out our values with a little more guidance, like the three examples of 'best practice' in this article here: 
‍'How Values drive performance - but only if you know how: Here's how'

Thanks in advance for taking part - your open, community-minded, collaborative input will make our association stronger :)