I love this. It also got me thinking about value in the singular, and how we assign value as a society. We can say we have certain values, but does that align with the things we value in practice?
Excellent blog... My life is all about connecting orgs, people and companies together to unlock "the possible transformative power that an understanding of values can unlock when it comes to social and environmental change."
Thanks for this. You mentioned Harmony's use of a values-based segmentation scheme. I have some reservations about how Schwartz's basic human values are applied by some of the people using Harmony's segments, but I also believe strongly that Schwartz's definition of values is the most useful and precise one we have. He has written, "Values refer to desirable goals that motivate action. People for whom social order, justice, and helpfulness are important values are motivated to pursue these goals." I agree. Understanding values as goals — as aspirational states against which we can measure beliefs and actions — is a key to understanding audiences. Understanding audiences, of course, is a key to connecting with them in any meaningful way. I also agree with you that the words for different values are vague, abstract, and meaningless on their own. But that does not mean the human values underlying those generalized, conceptualized terms are vague in people's minds. In workshops I've run, we ask people to name their own or their audiences' values and we always ask that each value be clarified by telling stories of actions and outcomes that align with the intended meaning of each value. This allows everyone to see the actions and the states of being that each named value encourages, which makes the values concrete rather than abstract.
People do use the word values to mean all, or any, of these things interchangeably so it is important to distinguish between them.
The power of collective values is so interesting, especially in relation to deep narrative and worldview. I am wondering what the relationship between them is, in creating powerful lived experience and understanding. It makes me think of Geertz (who I studied when I did anthropology a few decades ago, so I may misrepresenting…) who talked about worldview ( a model *of* the world) and ethos (a model *for* the world). Ethos seems similar to values. What stayed with me was how worldview and ethos are symbiotic - worldview gives ethos a practical, ‘common-sense’ grounding, and ethos enriches worldview with a sense of rightness, purpose and emotion. Maybe we need to think about values and worldview in a similar way?
This is super interesting, Janet, and if I'm understanding your comment correctly, it's something I've also been thinking about. It would be great to chat about this some time if you'd be keen?
Hi Ruth. I've been working with Plymouth Octopus (POP) for the past 3 years on a project called POP Collectives. (£5000 funding for 3 or more organisations collaborating together). One of the big things we've learnt through this project has been about values. We've learnt to draw a distinction between 'ethics' and 'value'. A lot of what is called 'values' is actually ethics. It's a description of the general guiding principles that we hope will direct our organisations. However, we've found that 'value' is a much more personal concept. Asking what do I 'value' in a situation implies questions like 'What is keeping me motivated to work in this context?' 'What will I go the extra mile for?' 'What will i kick off and behave badly to defend?' It's what you value determines how you behave.
My favourite example of this was a collective designed to deliver a conference. The organisations involved were highly aligned on purpose and the need to gather people. However, one organisation really wanted to experiment with a world cafe format, and the other wanted a traditional format with a chair and expert speakers. The value of having a traditional or contemporary approach outweighed the purpose of the event and the relationships involved and the collective completely broke down.
Of course, value changes and impacts behaviour. As Han Solo memorably put it, ' I ain't in this for your revolution, and I'm not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I'm in it for the money.' Except, in the end, he wasn't.
strong agree. and two other things: I believe values need to be both actionable, and embodied at every level. individually (each person ascribes and aspires to then), organizationally, AND in the work we do in the world. this is why most corporate values are a joke: they're incongruent.
in social justice orgs we tend to think about the values we want to see in the world, and increasingly are thinking about how those show up organizationally (what does "equity" look like in practice? does that mean abolishing a hierarchical org structure?). I think we are still missing the mark in connecting to inner work, and fully appreciating how hard that really is. if we value "abundance"... to embody that inside capitalism is a massive task of inner decolonization, and incredibly difficult to instantiate organizationally inside the non-profit industrial complex.
I personally have started to evolve away from the language of values and toward the language of principles, because the idea of "guiding principles" to me implies more of an element of actionable rather than merely aspirational.
So true, Brian. Thanks for taking the time to share your reflections. I totally agree it needs to be multi-level and that inner-work isn’t currently getting the attention that it needs. Although the rise in the prominence of the IDGs is interesting to see.
I’m fascinated by how our outside world, or the culture that we’re each immersed in, comes to influence our inner values. Nearly every experience we have primes and reinforces particular values, but social and environmental justice works tends not to spend much time considering how it can create the cultural conditions to see particular values (the values that research shows are the most important to the majority of people anyway) come to the foreground. Of course, it’s important to mention that cultures are only collections of human beings, so our personal values can very much influence broader culture too.
I’m also finding myself using different terminology for values as it’s such an overused term and one that often gets swept aside as being too wishy-washy. Interestingly values are defined as ‘guiding principles’ in the social psychology literature, so you may very well be on to something.
Anyway, thanks so much for reading. Always love receiving your writing in my inbox 😊
I love this. It also got me thinking about value in the singular, and how we assign value as a society. We can say we have certain values, but does that align with the things we value in practice?
Exactly!! Glad you enjoyed, Brett :)
Excellent blog... My life is all about connecting orgs, people and companies together to unlock "the possible transformative power that an understanding of values can unlock when it comes to social and environmental change."
This is excellent! Thank you for writing - really enjoyed
Thanks so much Tasha :) I hope you're well and settling back to life upon land!
Thanks for this. You mentioned Harmony's use of a values-based segmentation scheme. I have some reservations about how Schwartz's basic human values are applied by some of the people using Harmony's segments, but I also believe strongly that Schwartz's definition of values is the most useful and precise one we have. He has written, "Values refer to desirable goals that motivate action. People for whom social order, justice, and helpfulness are important values are motivated to pursue these goals." I agree. Understanding values as goals — as aspirational states against which we can measure beliefs and actions — is a key to understanding audiences. Understanding audiences, of course, is a key to connecting with them in any meaningful way. I also agree with you that the words for different values are vague, abstract, and meaningless on their own. But that does not mean the human values underlying those generalized, conceptualized terms are vague in people's minds. In workshops I've run, we ask people to name their own or their audiences' values and we always ask that each value be clarified by telling stories of actions and outcomes that align with the intended meaning of each value. This allows everyone to see the actions and the states of being that each named value encourages, which makes the values concrete rather than abstract.
Thanks Ruth - that is such a helpful blog.
People do use the word values to mean all, or any, of these things interchangeably so it is important to distinguish between them.
The power of collective values is so interesting, especially in relation to deep narrative and worldview. I am wondering what the relationship between them is, in creating powerful lived experience and understanding. It makes me think of Geertz (who I studied when I did anthropology a few decades ago, so I may misrepresenting…) who talked about worldview ( a model *of* the world) and ethos (a model *for* the world). Ethos seems similar to values. What stayed with me was how worldview and ethos are symbiotic - worldview gives ethos a practical, ‘common-sense’ grounding, and ethos enriches worldview with a sense of rightness, purpose and emotion. Maybe we need to think about values and worldview in a similar way?
This is super interesting, Janet, and if I'm understanding your comment correctly, it's something I've also been thinking about. It would be great to chat about this some time if you'd be keen?
Would love to!
Hi Ruth. I've been working with Plymouth Octopus (POP) for the past 3 years on a project called POP Collectives. (£5000 funding for 3 or more organisations collaborating together). One of the big things we've learnt through this project has been about values. We've learnt to draw a distinction between 'ethics' and 'value'. A lot of what is called 'values' is actually ethics. It's a description of the general guiding principles that we hope will direct our organisations. However, we've found that 'value' is a much more personal concept. Asking what do I 'value' in a situation implies questions like 'What is keeping me motivated to work in this context?' 'What will I go the extra mile for?' 'What will i kick off and behave badly to defend?' It's what you value determines how you behave.
My favourite example of this was a collective designed to deliver a conference. The organisations involved were highly aligned on purpose and the need to gather people. However, one organisation really wanted to experiment with a world cafe format, and the other wanted a traditional format with a chair and expert speakers. The value of having a traditional or contemporary approach outweighed the purpose of the event and the relationships involved and the collective completely broke down.
Of course, value changes and impacts behaviour. As Han Solo memorably put it, ' I ain't in this for your revolution, and I'm not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I'm in it for the money.' Except, in the end, he wasn't.
Thanks so much for sharing, Simon. I was on a panel with Matt Bell from POP last year and loved the sound of your work!
strong agree. and two other things: I believe values need to be both actionable, and embodied at every level. individually (each person ascribes and aspires to then), organizationally, AND in the work we do in the world. this is why most corporate values are a joke: they're incongruent.
in social justice orgs we tend to think about the values we want to see in the world, and increasingly are thinking about how those show up organizationally (what does "equity" look like in practice? does that mean abolishing a hierarchical org structure?). I think we are still missing the mark in connecting to inner work, and fully appreciating how hard that really is. if we value "abundance"... to embody that inside capitalism is a massive task of inner decolonization, and incredibly difficult to instantiate organizationally inside the non-profit industrial complex.
I personally have started to evolve away from the language of values and toward the language of principles, because the idea of "guiding principles" to me implies more of an element of actionable rather than merely aspirational.
thanks for sharing!
So true, Brian. Thanks for taking the time to share your reflections. I totally agree it needs to be multi-level and that inner-work isn’t currently getting the attention that it needs. Although the rise in the prominence of the IDGs is interesting to see.
I’m fascinated by how our outside world, or the culture that we’re each immersed in, comes to influence our inner values. Nearly every experience we have primes and reinforces particular values, but social and environmental justice works tends not to spend much time considering how it can create the cultural conditions to see particular values (the values that research shows are the most important to the majority of people anyway) come to the foreground. Of course, it’s important to mention that cultures are only collections of human beings, so our personal values can very much influence broader culture too.
I’m also finding myself using different terminology for values as it’s such an overused term and one that often gets swept aside as being too wishy-washy. Interestingly values are defined as ‘guiding principles’ in the social psychology literature, so you may very well be on to something.
Anyway, thanks so much for reading. Always love receiving your writing in my inbox 😊