— Three quarks for Muster Mark!
Sure he hasn't got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark.
If you’re not putting your values to work, what are you doing with them?
Your values serve three purposes in your life and work that would seem contradictory. First, they ground you, assuring that you do not go too far astray. Second, they direct and drive you, serving as a means to propel you forward. Third, they serve as a destination or target.
How can values do all three,
Root you in place,
Guide and move you forward, and
Draw you toward a goal?
It’s a puzzlement, right? Our perceptions of values defy common sense, but within themselves their three-part purpose is perfectly logical.
Values are simultaneously stable and dynamic. They can anchor the present, move forward, and set the future all at once because they are utterly secure yet always in motion, rooted in your past yet aspirational.
Consider Quarks
Whenever anything behaves too strangely to be easily grasped — as is the case with the tripartite purpose of human values — it is a good bet to look to quantum mechanics for an analogue. What is your favorite subatomic particle, by the way? Mine is the quark!
According to quantum mechanics, a particle can be in more than one place at the same time. Weirder still, that particle can only exist in two places at once if it remains unobserved. Observing the particle in two positions fixes it to just one of the positions, which makes demonstrating the phenomenon a bit of a challenge.
I don’t pretend to know much about physics (ask my high school teacher!) let alone understand it at all, but my superficial take on this phenomenon is enough help us grasp the nature of values. Human values, like particles in a quantum condition, can exist in more than one state at once, but this tri-state existence collapses if observed. In other words, at any given moment, we can perceive values in one one of their states — as an anchor, as a driver, or as a destination — even though they are in all three states at once.
When considered this way, your values will serve you in any state, thus assuring you are grounded, progressing, and on target. Powerful stuff, these values.
So how can you put your values to work in all three states? There is a four-part process that starts with identifying your values.
1. Identify Your Values
Values are at our core. They are the principles that are most important to us. They just seem right. So how to identify them?
There are several ways, but I will sketch one here. Start by thinking of three things.
What is most important to you in your life? (Your grounding)
What best motivates you to act? (Your progress)
What is it you most want out of your life? (Your target)
You can treat the third one as a retrospective if that makes it any easier by imagining yourself some decades from now at the end of your days contemplating the great life you have led. What choices did you make to bring you such contentment? What values do these choices reflect? What do they represent?
As an example, if your spouse and children come to mind as important, perhaps the value they most represent is love or family or companionship. If you see owning a large house as important, your core values may include physical comfort, status, providing for family, or material gain.
2. Assess and Edit Your Values
Nothing is perfect, and as important as your values are, they are not perfect either. Once you have identified your values it is necessary to check in with them from time to time to see if they still make sense. Circumstances change. Perspectives change. And people change. As do values. You may hold a value now that you did not hold ten years ago or won’t hold ten years on. The change might be a matter of degree. You could love someone a lot now but love that person or maybe someone else even more in the future.
Perhaps when you were younger, you saw hard work as a primary value and now as you grow older you temper your hard work with family time. Maybe you have become more religious or less religious. Your values can shift and should shift over time. The key is to recognize that fact and to ascertain why. Be aware, though, that if your values shift in a moment or with mere circumstances, they are not core values.
3. Embrace Your Values
Now that you know your values and have determined them to be the right values for you, it is time to embrace your values. Write them down. Review them regularly. They are you at your best. They center you and help make you who you are. Think of it this way; when you embrace your core values, you embrace yourself.
4. Practice Your Values
It may seem obvious, but we forget all the time. You need to put your values into practice. They need to inform every decision you make and every action you take whether at home or at work. I have said it elsewhere, but core values cannot be compartmentalized. They cannot be situational. If you profess a value, if you embrace that value, then you must live that value. You are that value.
All too often people con themselves into thinking that because they can identify and express their values, their values are instantly relevant. They may print their values on their business card, list them on their website, or even paint them on an office wall.
In other cases, they imagine that since they are so value-driven in their home life, that their work life is somehow exempted, that they don’t have be the same person. The truth is, though, that core values are core; they are you. You can’t swap them out whenever it suits you. If you practice a core value all the time except in a particular situation or environment, who are you really? To remain true to your core self, you must act on your values at all times. It is their practice that demonstrates how much we value our core values
Without consistent action, values are irrelevant.
———
Great leaders are all about values. They know their values. They assess their values. They embrace their values, and they live them. The people around them see this and know the leader’s values as well. The best people want to follow values-driven leaders because they share something at their cores. Connecting through values is how we identify our tribes and how we build and move teams toward success.
Teams need motivation to move forward, certainly, but they also need inspiration to find common cause. Great leaders use shared values to ground, inspire, and focus their people on what is most important. Without the leader promoting that shared sense, the team is not a team at all. It is just a group of people working together. Without core values, the leader is not a leader at all. They are just a boss.
What are your core values? How consistently do you live them?
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Putting Values to Work