I recently conducted an Introspection Workshop for a small start-up that were in the incubation stage of their business. They had a solid idea of what niche they wanted to target and were also clear about the tangibles of their new venture - the product and service.
When it came to the intangibles that was a different story. They were still wandering around in the dark with arms out-stretched searching for their elusive values. They could feel them, but the challenge was to articulate them into concrete terms. Simon Sinek in his book Start With Why calls these values the why. The whys being the purpose of the business that is above and beyond it’s product and/or services.
On an individual level I've worked with scores of individuals. One person who stands out that I’ve worked extensively with is Inge Solheim who led Prince Harry and company on the Walking with the Wounded South Pole Allied Challenge in 2013. Even for an experienced adventurer such as Inge, who leads parties to some of the most extreme climes on the planet, going through an introspection exercise every so often helps him to adjust his decisions and realign his direction based on his internal compass.
What is the over-arching principle of human behaviour?
Human behaviour is driven by the major principle of pleasure and pain. Every choice we make and every action we take is driven by this principle. The general human tendency is to move towards pleasure and away from pain. This is true as much for an individual as it is for an organization.
Every emotion we feel is simply a derivative of either pleasure or pain. The word we use for a specific emotion defines the degree of intensity of the pleasure or pain we experience. In the English language there are approximately 3000 words to describe emotions. There are exactly 2286 words used to describe negative emotions and 1051 words to describe positive emotions.
What is the difference between a feeling and an emotion?
In the Anglo-Saxon world we tend to use the words feelings and emotions as synonyms. In actuality, they have their own unique definitions. In the context of this blog, a feeling is a raw sensation that is communicated to the brain through one of our five senses like sight and smell.
When these raw sensations make it to the limbic system, the emotional centre of our brains, we assign meaning to that feeling. Depending on if we assign a positive or negative meaning it will evoke motion (an e-motion) either toward something or away from something.
For example, if your eyes register the raw sensation (a feeling) of a bright blue sky you may assign the meaning that is is a beautiful day. This means you will most likely feel a positive emotion like optimism and happiness. The opposite is true if you assign a negative meaning to an overcast day.
Take a moment to look at the equations below:
FEELING + MEANING = Evoke MOTION (E-MOTION)
FEELING + NEGATIVE MEANING = NEGATIVE EMOTION (PAIN)
FEELING + POSITIVE MEANING = POSITIVE EMOTION (PLEASURE)
What are Values?
When people talk about values they are simply referring to either positive or negative emotional states. That is, they are stating what pleasures they are moving towards and what pains they are moving away from. The key point to remember here is that values are emotions.
Now, you may value many things such as your family, your house, your job, your friends and so on. These are things that you value, but they are not values. Your family, house, job and friends are all important to you. But here is the important distinction. Each of the above nouns are the vehicles that allow you to feel a certain way - to experience a certain type of emotion.
If I asked you, ‘What does your family give you?’ You may answer a sense of belonging, a sense of love, a sense of contribution and/or a sense of something greater than yourself. It is how we want to feel that are the drivers behind our behaviour. It is the emotions we want to experience that are our values.
What are Moving-Toward Values (MTVs)?
As human beings we are constantly motivated to move toward pleasurable emotional states. However, there are always going to be some emotions you will value more than others. For example, what are the emotions that will give you the most pleasure – Love or Success? Freedom or Intimacy? Adventure or Security?
These pleasurable states that we value most are ‘Moving-Toward’ values (MTVs), because these are the emotional states that we will do the most to attain. Some examples of MTVs are success, freedom, intimacy, security, adventure, power, passion, comfort, and health.
It is very important to understand that we do not weigh all these values equally. Usually there are preferences. There is a hierarchy to our values and the emotions we want to experience. It is this hierarchy that greatly influences the decisions we make from moment to moment - consciously and unconsciously. For example, some people value comfort over passion. Others value freedom over security, and still other people may value intimacy over success.
They key is to understand that we humans will always try to realize our highest values first.
What are Moving-Away Values (MAVs)?
Just as there are emotions we want to experience because they are pleasurable, there is also a list of emotions that we will do almost anything to avoid. As Daniel Kahneman points out in his book Thinking Fast and Slow there is a greater tendency for people to make choices based on avoiding pain than gaining pleasure, which directly impacts our decision-making.
As an example, you may be given the opportunity to present your work to the executive team of your company. You may have strong MTVs of recognition and feeling appreciated. You may also have strong MAVs of not feeling embarrassed or vulnerable. In the end, you choose to opt out of making the presentation and instead relinquish that task to someone else on your team. You were driven more by avoiding the pain of potential embarrassment and vulnerability then by the kudos of receiving well-deserved recognition and appreciation for excellent work.
Just like MTVs, we have a hierarchy of MAVs that will heavily influence on how we make decisions.
How do you discover your MTVs and MAVs?
Depending on what aspect of your life you are attending to you will have different values. In your professional life you may have values such as feeling professional and assertive in your working relationships. Although theses values are important at the office, you may not consider them top of the hierarchy in your family life.
When I’m working with clients we focus on one slice of their life at a time. Since the majority of my developmental dialogues are with clients focusing on their professional lives we tend to discover their MTVs and MAVs as it pertains to that aspect.
Here are the steps and some example questions of what I generally ask people when we are doing an introspection exercise:
Step 1 - Identifying MTVs
How do you want to feel at work?
What is important for you to feel professionally?
How do you want to feel about the quality of your work, your effort, your abilities and capabilities?
What is important for others to feel about you professionally, about your effort, about the quality of your work?
Step 2 - Prioritizing MTVs
The client then lists their MTVs in the order of priority. This exercise can be quite the eye-opener, because it reveals whether my client’s decisions are in line with their top values.
This insight can help my client to understand why he or she heads in a certain direction on a consistent basis. By articulating his or her hierarchy of MTVs my client can understand why he or she sometimes has difficulty in making decisions. This becomes easy to see when the values are written down in front of them and the MTVs can be contrasted and compared with one another.
Step 3 - Identifying MAVs
What emotions do you never want to experience at work?
What are some of the worst emotions you have experienced as a professional?
How do you never want other professionals to feel about you, your effort, your quality of work?
What emotions do you never want associated with your professional reputation?
Step 4 - Prioritizing MAVs
The client then lists their MAVs in the order of priority.
Step 5 - Reengineering MTVs & MAVs
In the final step, I help my client to reexamine their values and decide what values they want to add; what values they want to eliminate; and whether the hierarchy needs to be modified.
In Conclusion
By changing your values you change your life. This is a very powerful concept which can bring a profound shift in someone’s life or to how a business does it’s business.
You can literally change the way you think, feel and behave in virtually every area of your life simply by consciously selecting or redirecting the order and content of your values hierarchy system.
We encourage you to share your questions, opinions and comments.
Thanks again for taking the time to read our blog.
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