Hold your values close

Inspired by Brené Brown, Jim Buckell dug deep to explore his values.

He found a quick way to identify his key values and call them up when needed  

In these fast-moving and highly polarised times, values are essential. They form a bedrock underpinning our lives. The ideals we hold in high regard provide a compass to guide us at all times, allowing us to be clear and confident about what is driving our actions.

Our values help us to come from a good place and not be distracted by unconscious bias or swayed by the distracting chatter of loud voices and strong opinions swirling around us.

These distractions might come from people we encounter, things we hear or – quite likely these days – our social media feeds.

Cut through the chatter

All around us, in the real and virtual worlds, there’s a ceaseless stream of marketing, opinions and blatant propaganda trying its best to get us to part with our hard-earned or manipulate us into supporting something we might otherwise reject. There are oodles of carefully designed messages trying to bypass the foundations we’ve built to keep ourselves rock solid. Which makes our values ever more important.

We all have values but we may not always be able to call them up and apply them when we need them. That’s why, inspired by American social researcher Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead, I leant heavily on her work to come up with a practical way to do just that.

The work starts with Brené’s sorting exercise to sift through the values we cherish and help us explore them. In my version, we end up with three key values for life, work and everything.

How the values sort works

First, write down all the values you can think of that are important to you. I came up with a list of 15.

Then group them into themes – related concepts or clusters that fit together well. For example, compassion I grouped with connection. My thinking was that the compassion I show towards others, my family and friends, my colleagues, my dog (!), builds connection.

The rule of three

Next, whittle down these groupings into three. Brené recommends just two, but I have a love affair with triplets. Three is rhythmical, it adds a dimension, it works with words (her voice  –  big, bold and brassy – filled the room) and in landscaping (three rocks in a cluster; always better than two), so why not here? Look, I don’t absolutely know why, but three works for me (forgive me Brené). But if two feels better for you, go for it!

Finally, look for a headline value from which all the others in that group flow. For me, for example, connection became my headline value in the group containing compassion. I wasn’t expecting this! I’d always placed a high value on compassion. But when I took time to reflect I realised it was the goal of connection that drove my compassion rather than the other way around.

Bingo! Your key values

That’s how we end up with three key values (or two if you prefer). I find mine are easy to remember, quick to recall and work with when you need them. I know you want to know what they are. Easy tiger. If I give them away, you might be inclined to borrow them, which defeats the purpose of doing the exercise. 

Anyhow, you know the first one is connection. And you know that compassion falls under this headline. Here’s another tip: all three start with C. This is pure coincidence (that letter again!). But it helps in calling them up, bringing them into my consciousness when things get challenging. Enough with the alliteration.

Further work

We are now set up to do some further work on how these values help us. What spaces do they open up for us? How can they be useful in times of challenge, for example in tricky conversations? What principles (“values with legs” as we call them at Groupwork Centre) do they invoke for us?  

I have come to love my key values and hold them close, just as I do all my selves on my bus and the microskills in my kit bag. That’s gold.