A value is a belief or philosophy that is held highly meaningful or critically important. We all have values, whether we are consciously aware of them or not. As we mature our experiences help you understand trough trial and error that certain things or ideas are more valuable or treasured than other things and ideas. This maturation process of experiences helps us define our own personal set of values. Values can be functional in that they are not well defined by the person, but nonetheless still drive behavior, or values can be developed through a process of definition, evaluation and selection. Values can emerge from a common belief, such as hard work, being optimistic, or being on time. Other core personal values can be more psychological, such as justice, empathy, or self-worth.
Functional Values and Defined Values
The function values that make up your belief system about who you are and how you ought to behave has been determined by everything that has happened to you in your life. These functional values include influences from parents, family, religious experiences, friends, pees, education, and more. Effective people recognize these environmental influences and move beyond functional to a defined set of clear, concise, and meaningful values, beliefs, and priorities. An ineffective person has functional values, but they are often undefined thus causing the person to become confused about what is valued most. That is why their behavior often lacks consistency and creates missed opportunities.
Personal and Organization Values
People have values and organizations have values. Indeed, unless an organization defines its values, communicates them to everyone concerned, and practices them on a daily basis, then the organization’s values default to a sum of what the employees practice each day. The values practiced by employees may be effective toward the organization’s purpose, or they may not. This is why it is important for organization to define, communicate, and practice a set of core values that supports its strategic purpose.
The same thing is essentially true for people. Unless we define our own set of values, consider and ponder them on a personal level, and do our best to practice them each day, then we are like a sailing ship without a rudder that is tossed in any direction at sea. This is to say that people without valued to drive their behavior can be tossed in the various directions of life. Perhaps you have seen people like this who don’t know who they are, what they stand for, or where they are going.
Implementing values, either personally or organizationally, can be a source of great energy. For an individual, committing to and applying personal values can be highly motivational. Likewise, when organizations determine, adopt, and practice a core set of values, the workers become energized, along with customers, products and services. Actually, in an organization that has defined, communicated, and practiced values everyone and everything associated with the organization feels the impact.
Step One – Define Your Values
To assist you in defining a set of core personal values, review the list below. Select p to ten values that you believe best describes the person you want to be, not necessary the person you are. Feel free to add any values of your own to the list.
| Accomplishment
Accountability Accuracy Achievement Adventure Appreciation Beauty Calmness Challenge Change Cleanliness Collaboration Commitment Communication Community Competence Competition Cooperation Creativity Decisiveness Discipline Efficiency Equality Excellence Faith Family |
Freedom
Friendship Fun Gratitude Hard work Harmony Honesty Honor Independence Innovation Integrity Joy Justice Knowledge Leadership Learning Love Loyalty Meaning Money Openness Orderliness Patriotism Perfection Personal growth Positive attitude |
Power
Practicality Privacy Problem solving Punctuality Quality Resourcefulness Respect Results Safety Satisfaction Security Self-reliance Service Social status Strength Success Teamwork Tolerance Tradition Trust Truth Unity Variety Wealth Wisdom |
Step 2 – Eliminate
Carefully review the ten values you have identified. Cross out any value that is a duplicate of another personal value. Ensure that the list of values you create is clear to you, comprehensive in nature, and descriptive of the person you want to become.
Step 3 – Prioritize
Now that you have selected the personal values that best describe the person you want to be, arrange the values in prioritized order. Some people find this step challenging, because the difference between value number 6 and 7 can be negligible, but nonetheless consider carefully what is most important to you, then second most important, third most important and so forth.
Step 4 – Share
With your set of values you are ready to share the list with someone who knows you ell. The person can be family, friend, or business colleague: it matters that the person knows you well, and is open enough to provide honest feedback.
Share your list with the person and explain that the personal values listed represent the core driving forces of the person you would like to become. Ask for feedback from the person. Listen carefully to his or her comments. Form a conclusion that the list you have created is practical, realistic and honest.
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