Last week saw the simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer at the cinema. I thought this was an interesting juxtaposition. I wonder which one will gross more in sales revenue. As a society are we more interested in a film about a children’s toy, or one about the scientist who was instrumental in creating the weapon that could destroy the planet? Maybe it’s not a fair comparison, after all if you wanted to know about the Manhattan project you could find out very easily without watching a film. And who’s against a bit of cinematic escapism into the world of Barbie, no harm in that surely.
What these films bring to my mind though is values. Values are things which are important to us. They motivate us to do what we do. They are how we judge right and wrong, we feel negative emotions when our values are violated. Values are a significant component of our personality, so knowing more about what values are and how they function is important. They are arranged in hierarchies in all areas of our lives, career, relationships, health and fitness, personal growth and development, and spirituality. Values are usually expressed as a single word like trust, support, commitment, growth, success, or learning.
In a relationship context we tend to look for a partner who is a good match in terms of values. We may well look for differences elsewhere, but a solid match in our values will help a relationship to function well. This is also the case in business. Businesses will usually have a set of values that they expect people to demonstrate in the organisation through their behaviour. Often these are stated in a catchy acronym. The intention of having a set of values in a business is to bring about a degree of alignment between employees. This then means everyone is pulling together towards a common objective, and that the business displays a consistent face to customers and other stakeholders. The principal problem with values in a business is that the people at the top of the organisation do not display the same values that they expect everyone else to adopt. This is closely related to money or profit not being overtly expressed in the values. The way we have collectively imagined business so far, is for the purpose of making money. So why do companies not display this in their values. Another issue with corporate values is not understanding what each one means in terms of people’s behaviour. So, if you ever introduce values into a business then make sure that you have given these points some thought. And remember that a business will always have values even if they are not written on paper.
In a coaching setting it is important to understand what a client’s values are too. This is because it is possible to get a deeper sense of the cause of someone’s current challenge by knowing what their values are. It is common for me to elicit a client’s values, particularly if they are facing a challenge in their career or relationship. Just by helping someone understand, more consciously, what is important to them in this area of their life can be enlightening. We are often conscious of some of our values, and other ones lie a little bit deeper within our unconscious. But with the right approach it is possible to bring these into our conscious awareness too.
Once we have brought the values into conscious awareness it then becomes possible to review them and determine if they reveal what’s not working for the client. One aspect of this is finding out if the value itself is driving us towards something we desire or away from something that we do not want to experience. Even when expressed as a positive word the underlying motivation can be away from. One common example of this in a relationship context is the word ‘Trust’. Most often behind this word is the sense that the client is actually moving away from being emotionally hurt, rather than moving towards trust as such. This kind of away from motivation can lead to negative behaviours and feeling negative emotions. But it is possible to change our values, and values do evolve over time too.
Whether you are watching Barbie or Oppenheimer this week become more aware of what is important to you in different areas of your life. Doing so can help you move more decisively in the direction you want. Finally, I believe that at some point, not too far in the future, we will all collectively need to re-consider our values and place more significance on our sense of unity. Bitter rivals sitting on vast arsenals of powerful nuclear weapons is an accident waiting to happen. Or, in the words of J Robert Oppenheimer,
“The peoples of this world must unite, or they will perish.”
Recent Comments