Our Values Journey
Where We've Come From & Where We're Going
Since its inception as one school on one campus more than 50 years ago, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center has made significant strides forward, but one thing has remained consistent – our determination to grow and lead. As TTUHSC began developing its 2020 strategic plan, we held thematic workshops to gather feedback from our students, faculty and staff, and heard resoundingly that contentment is not in our character.
Steve Sosland
As Chief People Officer for TTUHSC, Steve guided TTUHSC on our Values journey, providing
insights and encouragement such as the letter below. Steve has since joined the Texas Tech University System.
We began our journey to create a sustainable values-based culture on May 2-3, 2018, when we invited 104 diverse TTUHSC team members to a Values Summit. The purpose of the summit was to develop a draft of the core values we commonly share, with four or five behaviors as guidelines to exhibiting them.
Next, we held over 90 listening tours on all our campuses and most of our managed care locations to gather input from more than 2600 TTUHSC team members to help edit the document. Since that time, we have committed to living a life of shared values and influencing others around us to do the same. We demonstrate our alignment by holding ourselves and others accountable to living these values each day. This is how we, as One Team, are helping to sustain our Values-Based Culture.
Let’s work hard to recognize those who are living our values. Together, we will sustain our values-based culture and make a positive impact on our students, patients, TTUHSC community and each other.
Warm regards,
Steve Sosland
As we began developing our strategic plan to build on our recognized strength and position as a leader in health-related higher education, TTUHSC committed to cultivating an exceptional workplace community with a positive culture that puts people first.
History
During the spring of 2018, TTUHSC began its journey to create a sustainable, values-based culture. Led by our Chief People Officer at the time, Steve Sosland, the institution held a Values Summit to clearly define our shared core values and desirable behaviors to shape the culture of our team.
TTUHSC Team Members at the 2018 Values Summit
The values came from the collective hearts and minds of our team members. At the summit, there were two ground rules. Everyone participates and no one dominates. We collaborated and we debated, and by the end of the summit, we left as one team, united in our goal to bring a draft of our values and corresponding desirable behaviors to the entire TTUHSC team.
We then presented the draft of our values and behaviors to the TTUHSC Team. We heard from over 2500 team members who gave us valuable feedback. In some cases, they validated the work of the summit team. In other cases, they provided clarification or enhanced the original draft. From there, we had the basis to build our values-based culture.
While no longer in use, these icons were created early in our Values journey in abstract
represention of our guiding principles
Values Integration Teams
After our values were defined, TTUHSC formed five Values Integration Teams to ensure we accomplished our Strategic People Goals for 2020. After successfully meeting these goals, we turned our focus to innovating and collaborating with teams and stakeholders across the organization to integrate the TTUHSC Values into processes that would help improve health care and sustain the Values-Based Culture through the years to come. The five Values Integration Teams included:
Committed to fostering the personal and professional growth of our team members.
Dedicated to strengthening our offerings to reinforce our position as an Employer of Choice.
Providing tools and highlighting opportunities for individuals to extend our shared values.
Encouraging the celebration of exceptional team members and achievements.
Advancing our institution by projecting a clear, consistent image and message.
These teams oversaw initiatives to help us integrate our values into our daily work and processes. FIND OUT MORE »
In 2021, the TTUHSC Office of People and Values was established to provide personal and professional development to all team members.
From hosting weekly webinars, monthly podcasts and development opportunities, and extended leadership training programs, OPV continues to pioneer lasting ways to integrate our values into organizational processes while providing innovative development opportunities that meet the ever-changing needs of our team members. Explore development opportunities »
Field Guide Booklets
The first TTUHSC field guide booklet was launched in 2018, and since then, we expanded and retooled the field guide into its second edition - released in 2022, and are presently working on editing our third rendition of the Values Field Guide.
Values 2.0 Summit
On November 30, 2022, select team members from each campus community gathered together to reflect on our Values journey. As One Team, we engaged in careful consideration of our Values-Based Culture, asking ourselves:
- What’s going well? What are our strengths?
- What can we do better? What are our opportunities?
Lively discourse and collaborative insights flowed throughout the session, and through these bold conversations, we reaffirmed the trajectory of our Values-Based Culture. One key outcome of the summit was a directive from President Rice-Spearman to form a taskforce to explore three distinct items:
- Determine whether the current icons accurately reflect our values
- Examine the descriptions of our Values and their defining behaviors to ensure the use of inclusive language.
- Identify strategies to further integrate our Values-Based Culture to grow engagement of both learners and team members.
This taskforce, which represented a diverse cross-section of all campuses and locations served by TTUHSC, ultimately provided several recommendations. After careful consideration and reflection, it was determined that, to better reflect our mission and vision, the Values icons would be retired and the language of the behaviors would undergo slight modifications to better reflect our focus as campus community members.
With a refreshed trajectory and renewed focus, our Values continue to guide the work of our University. Though we are spread across many campuses, our core values connect us together as One Team as we shape the future of health.
View a message from Chancellor Tedd L. Mitchell. Originally released in 2018.