Mike Munro Turner

and belie fsValues

Our values fundamentally affect the beliefs and mind-sets we hold.M ike Munro Turner clarifies the importance of values in our lives.

Coach the CoachCoaching today

Coach the Coach • Issue 7 Coach the Coach • ©Fenman Limited 2004

What are values?

Values describe, and provide ameans of talking about, what isimportant to us. They are ideals wehold that give significance andmeaning to our lives and hencethey underpin our beliefs,influencing the decisions we make,the actions we take, and the life welead. Understanding values helps usto understand how we create ourown reality and gives us insightinto the personal realities of others.

Values priorities

Values exist and have meaningonly within a web of other values,not in isolation. For example, if Isay that honesty is important tome, then you might expect that Iwill always tell the truth. But, infact, knowing that honesty isimportant to me will give you littleidea as to whether I will alwaystell the truth unless you know thepriority I place on honesty relativeto my other values. If I place ahigher priority on being liked thanon honesty, then I may not give

you honest feedback if I fear doingso would alienate you.

This is an example with just twovalues. The situation gets muchmore complex when our top 10 or20 values are in play. It also meansthat people with shared values, butwith different value priorities, maybehave in radically different ways.Thus, in working with anindividual or an organisation, it isnot enough to know what theirvalues are – you must also exploretheir value priorities. And, if youwant to help that individual ororganisation change, then the beststrategy is to help them re-prioritisetheir most important values, notfor them to prioritise their less-important values more highly.

One aspect of leading anintegrated, successful and fulfilledlife is to have chosen a life inwhich our high-priority values arenot in conflict on a frequent basis.Despite this, paradoxically it isthose times when our highestpriority values are in conflict, and

we are forced to choose betweentwo ideals in which we deeplybelieve, that are often the definingmoments of our lives. Suchsituations lead us to reflect deeplyon what is really important to us,and give us a particular clarityabout where our priorities lie. It isin these moments that ourcharacter develops.

Beliefs, values, experience andworld views

The only reality we can know isthe one that consists of theconstructs we have created.Values, beliefs and experiences areall constructs – values areconstructs that we hold asimportant; beliefs are constructsthat we hold to be true; andexperiences are constructs aboutreality. The way in which we seeand experience the world – ourworld view – depends on how weinterpret the outer world ofnature, things and people, andalso on our level of consciousness,which in turn depends on ourvalue priorities.

The value of values

Knowing what our valuespriorities are – and understandinghow they affect our world view,beliefs and actions – has a widerange of benefits:! When we practise, actualise

or embody our priority values,we experience our lives asmeaningful, significant andimportant.

! Values help us understand whywe believe what we believe –and, if we wish, to change it.

! Shared values are the basis ofrelationship – the better weunderstand our own and others’values, the more likely we are tohave meaningful and fulfillingrelationships.

! If we value something, we willgo after it – we will bemotivated by it. Thus, if weunderstand our values, we alsoknow what motivates us.

! Knowing our own values makesus more tolerant of others’

values – and of them as people– and so leads us to appreciatediversity.

! Being aware of our values helpsus answer some of the bigcoaching questions such as‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is thedifference I want to make?’

! Discerning our future valuesenables us to act more inten-tionally and move smoothlyinto future phases of our lives.

! Knowing our foundation valueshelps us deal better withdifficulty and stress and returnto equilibrium more quickly.

! Teams that are unaware of theirvalue priorities will tend tooperate at the lowest commondenominator world view; self-aware teams can operate at thehighest common denominatorworld view.

Values shift

Over the last few centuries, therehave been a succession of majorvalues shifts as society has movedfrom being largely agrarian,through industrialisation, totoday’s increasingly knowledge-based economy. This shift has notbeen even across the world, but,with globalisation in all its forms(commercial, informational,terrorist and so on), it has affectedmost people on the planet. Now, at the start of the 21st century, we find ourselves facing a set ofglobal social and environmentalchallenges. Dealing with challenges of this scale andcomplexity demands that we place a high priority on values of a similar scope and complexity(values such as ecological balance,global justice, human rights andconvivial technology), and that weshift to a world view which seesthe planet as a global society ofwhich we are all a part and forwhich we must care (the right-hand side of Table 1). We canperhaps start by exploring ourown values in order to answer thequestion ‘What is it that the worldof tomorrow needs that I canuniquely offer?’

Reference1 Don Beck and Christopher Cowan, Spiral Dynamics, Blackwell, 1996.

Further reading

Richard Barrett, Liberating the Corporate Soul, Butterworth Heinemann, 1998.

C lare Collins and Paul Chippendale, New W isdom II - Values-based Development, Acorn, 1995.

Stephen Covey and A Roger Merrill, First Things First, Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Brian Hall, Values Shift: a Guide to Personal and Organizational Transformation, Salesian Press, 1994.

Mike Munro Turner is a leading executive coach and mentor. He has over 10 years’experience of improving individual and organisational performance through workingwith senior executives to increase their leadership effectiveness, improve theirpersonal and business performance and accelerate the achievement of the organisa-tion’s vision. He also works with the Centre for Creative Leadership in Brussels ontheir leadership development programmes and is on the faculty of the School ofCoaching, where he trains coaches. As ‘Mike the Mentor’, he publishes a newsletteron mentoring and coaching. • Telephone: +44 (0) 1684 893380• E-mail: mike @mikethementor.co.uk• Website: www.mikethementor.co.uk

It is important to distinguish end values andmeans values

‘’

Questions for eliciting valuesWe relate to the world throughthe lens of our values priorities,which affects what we notice,think, feel, choose and do. Thisprovides us w ith a series ofquestions that we can use to elicitkey focus values quickly.

Events

Perceptions/thoughts

Feelings

Choices

Actions

What interests you?

What do you enjoy?

What is important to you?

What do you spendyour time doing?

the movement to a new level ofconsciousness, but also thedevelopment of specific skills. Andthe further to the right the shift is,the more complex the skills thatneed to be developed are.

End and means values

When working with values, it isimportant to distinguish end valuesand means values.

End values are the ultimateoutcomes we value. Means valuesare the ways in which we canrealise the end values. People whoare clear about their end values aremore likely to feel fulfilled. If yourarely feel fulfilled, it may be thatthe values you are treating as endsin themselves are actually meansvalues. You can distinguish an endvalue by asking yourself what isimportant about a particular value.If the answer is another value, thenit was a means value; if the answer

is ‘Well, it just is’, then you havefound one of your end values.

Foundation, focus and futurevalues

It is also important to distinguishbetween foundation, focus andfuture values:

! Foundation values. These are thevalues we need in place to have asolid foundation to our lives. Ifour foundation values arethreatened or if we are stressed,satisfying these values willdemand most of our energy,pulling us away from our focusand future values. Some peoplewho are habitually very stressedmay live out much of their livesin this area.

! Focus values. These are thosevalue priorities in our lives thatdescribe our present world view,our criteria for decision making,our attitude toward relation-

ships, and the focus of most ofour energy. We therefore tend tobe more aware of our focusvalues than we are of ourfoundation or future values.

! Future values. These representwhat is important to us aboutthe future we are moving into.Because they are not yet fullydeveloped, but at the same time are important to us, theymotivate us to grow and develop– pulling us into the future everymoment of our lives.

All three value areas are essential ifwe are to grow and develop in ahealthy way. As we continue todevelop, values which were onceour future values may becomefocus values as we put more energyinto them and develop the skills toactualise them. If this processcontinues, they eventually becomeintegrated into who we are andhow we lead our lives, and becomepart of our foundation.

A progression of world views isshown in the framework I’vecompiled in Table 1. Since each world view leads to a particular wayof perceiving and experiencing theworld, having a particular world viewhas a profound impact on almostevery aspect of our lives.

The table shows examples ofleadership styles and reactions tochange which correspond to each ofthe world views. The first two stagesreflect a level of development wherewe look to authority outside ourselvesas the source of our growth anddevelopment. Between the second andthird stages, there comes a major shiftin our attitude towards ourselves, theway we view ourselves and our rela-tionship to the world – as we start todevelop our inner authority and takefuller responsibility for our lives.

Most of us are somewhere in themiddle of the table, thinking of theworld either as a problem or aproject. This is where we focus ourattention and energy much of thetime. At some times – for example, atparticularly difficult or stressful times

– we view the world as a more hostileplace and are more connected to thefoundational values and world viewslocated towards the left of the table.At other times, we visit the right sidewhere our visions and hopes for thefuture are.

When we shift our predominantworld view, it can be very challengingpersonally. We find old certaintiesfading, activities losing their meaningand relationships being outgrown.What is going on is often not clear,and it may feel as if our life isbreaking down. Mapping someone’svalues and world view - helping themsee the transition they are engaged in– and supporting them in developingthe skills to underpin the new realityinto which they are emerging, is a keyrole for coaches and mentors.

One way of distinguishingperformance coaching from transformational coaching is that performance coaching aims to help

people be more effective at operatingwithin their current world view,whilst transformational coaching

helps people make the transition fromone world view to another.

Useful frameworks and tools

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is one widely known framework which describes different levels ofconsciousness and the correspondingworld views. Spiral Dynamics (Beck and Cowan 1996)1 maps indetail the different world views wecan hold. There are a number of world-view maps and associatedvalue-priority questionnaires which explicitly relate specific valuesto particular world views (for

example, www.KnowandRelate.comand www.LJMap.com).

Value systems

Our predominant world view isdetermined by where the majority ofour priority values are. When it comesto exploring individual values, onestraightforward approach is to asksomeone about their value prioritiesand create a ranked list. However,values are complex. In particular theyvary as to whether they:

! require more or less skill toembody;

! are end or means values;

! are foundation, focus or futurevalues.

Values and skills

To live by our values is not just amatter or being clear about what ourvalue priorities are.

To be able to express our values inour lives, we need to develop theskills to behave according to ourvalues. Thus the shift to a moreinclusive world view involves not just

Values and beliefs

Coach the Coach Coach the Coach

importan t to you?What is

1 Surviving 2 Belonging 3 Self-initiating 4 Interdepending

World view The world is a hostile The world is a problem The world is a project The world is a global place where I must w ith which I must cope in which I want society for whichstruggle for survival and where I seek to participate we must care

to belong

Example values Self-preservation Self-worth Self-actualisation Truth/w isdomSafety Competition Independence Convivial tools

Skills necessary to Instrumental – the Emotional – the ability Imaginal – the Systemic – the capacityembody the values blend of intelligence to act w ith capacity to be creative to see all the parts

and manual dexterity understanding and about our choices of a system as theythat enables us to generosity to others and actions relate to the whole

be competent

Leadership and Autocratic Complex hierarchy Collaborative leadership Interdevelopmentalmanagement style Top-down use of power Bureaucratic systems Intergroup emphasis leadership

G lobal

How organisational As a threat to As a threat to my As an opportunity to As a means to change is perceived my survival status or success be embraced make the world a

better place

Locus of authority External Internal

Value type Foundation Focus Future

Table 1: Values and world views

the movement to a new level ofconsciousness, but also thedevelopment of specific skills. Andthe further to the right the shift is,the more complex the skills thatneed to be developed are.

End and means values

When working with values, it isimportant to distinguish end valuesand means values.

End values are the ultimateoutcomes we value. Means valuesare the ways in which we canrealise the end values. People whoare clear about their end values aremore likely to feel fulfilled. If yourarely feel fulfilled, it may be thatthe values you are treating as endsin themselves are actually meansvalues. You can distinguish an endvalue by asking yourself what isimportant about a particular value.If the answer is another value, thenit was a means value; if the answer

is ‘Well, it just is’, then you havefound one of your end values.

Foundation, focus and futurevalues

It is also important to distinguishbetween foundation, focus andfuture values:

! Foundation values. These are thevalues we need in place to have asolid foundation to our lives. Ifour foundation values arethreatened or if we are stressed,satisfying these values willdemand most of our energy,pulling us away from our focusand future values. Some peoplewho are habitually very stressedmay live out much of their livesin this area.

! Focus values. These are thosevalue priorities in our lives thatdescribe our present world view,our criteria for decision making,our attitude toward relation-

ships, and the focus of most ofour energy. We therefore tend tobe more aware of our focusvalues than we are of ourfoundation or future values.

! Future values. These representwhat is important to us aboutthe future we are moving into.Because they are not yet fullydeveloped, but at the same time are important to us, theymotivate us to grow and develop– pulling us into the future everymoment of our lives.

All three value areas are essential ifwe are to grow and develop in ahealthy way. As we continue todevelop, values which were onceour future values may becomefocus values as we put more energyinto them and develop the skills toactualise them. If this processcontinues, they eventually becomeintegrated into who we are andhow we lead our lives, and becomepart of our foundation.

A progression of world views isshown in the framework I’vecompiled in Table 1. Since each world view leads to a particular wayof perceiving and experiencing theworld, having a particular world viewhas a profound impact on almostevery aspect of our lives.

The table shows examples ofleadership styles and reactions tochange which correspond to each ofthe world views. The first two stagesreflect a level of development wherewe look to authority outside ourselvesas the source of our growth anddevelopment. Between the second andthird stages, there comes a major shiftin our attitude towards ourselves, theway we view ourselves and our rela-tionship to the world – as we start todevelop our inner authority and takefuller responsibility for our lives.

Most of us are somewhere in themiddle of the table, thinking of theworld either as a problem or aproject. This is where we focus ourattention and energy much of thetime. At some times – for example, atparticularly difficult or stressful times

– we view the world as a more hostileplace and are more connected to thefoundational values and world viewslocated towards the left of the table.At other times, we visit the right sidewhere our visions and hopes for thefuture are.

When we shift our predominantworld view, it can be very challengingpersonally. We find old certaintiesfading, activities losing their meaningand relationships being outgrown.What is going on is often not clear,and it may feel as if our life isbreaking down. Mapping someone’svalues and world view - helping themsee the transition they are engaged in– and supporting them in developingthe skills to underpin the new realityinto which they are emerging, is a keyrole for coaches and mentors.

One way of distinguishingperformance coaching from transformational coaching is that performance coaching aims to help

people be more effective at operatingwithin their current world view,whilst transformational coaching

helps people make the transition fromone world view to another.

Useful frameworks and tools

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is one widely known framework which describes different levels ofconsciousness and the correspondingworld views. Spiral Dynamics (Beck and Cowan 1996)1 maps indetail the different world views wecan hold. There are a number of world-view maps and associatedvalue-priority questionnaires which explicitly relate specific valuesto particular world views (for

example, www.KnowandRelate.comand www.LJMap.com).

Value systems

Our predominant world view isdetermined by where the majority ofour priority values are. When it comesto exploring individual values, onestraightforward approach is to asksomeone about their value prioritiesand create a ranked list. However,values are complex. In particular theyvary as to whether they:

! require more or less skill toembody;

! are end or means values;

! are foundation, focus or futurevalues.

Values and skills

To live by our values is not just amatter or being clear about what ourvalue priorities are.

To be able to express our values inour lives, we need to develop theskills to behave according to ourvalues. Thus the shift to a moreinclusive world view involves not just

Values and beliefs

Coach the Coach Coach the Coach

importan t to you?What is

1 Surviving 2 Belonging 3 Self-initiating 4 Interdepending

World view The world is a hostile The world is a problem The world is a project The world is a global place where I must w ith which I must cope in which I want society for whichstruggle for survival and where I seek to participate we must care

to belong

Example values Self-preservation Self-worth Self-actualisation Truth/w isdomSafety Competition Independence Convivial tools

Skills necessary to Instrumental – the Emotional – the ability Imaginal – the Systemic – the capacityembody the values blend of intelligence to act w ith capacity to be creative to see all the parts

and manual dexterity understanding and about our choices of a system as theythat enables us to generosity to others and actions relate to the whole

be competent

Leadership and Autocratic Complex hierarchy Collaborative leadership Interdevelopmentalmanagement style Top-down use of power Bureaucratic systems Intergroup emphasis leadership

G lobal

How organisational As a threat to As a threat to my As an opportunity to As a means to change is perceived my survival status or success be embraced make the world a

better place

Locus of authority External Internal

Value type Foundation Focus Future

Table 1: Values and world views

Mike Munro Turner

and belie fsValues

Our values fundamentally affect the beliefs and mind-sets we hold.M ike Munro Turner clarifies the importance of values in our lives.

Coach the CoachCoaching today

Coach the Coach • Issue 7 Coach the Coach • ©Fenman Limited 2004

What are values?

Values describe, and provide ameans of talking about, what isimportant to us. They are ideals wehold that give significance andmeaning to our lives and hencethey underpin our beliefs,influencing the decisions we make,the actions we take, and the life welead. Understanding values helps usto understand how we create ourown reality and gives us insightinto the personal realities of others.

Values priorities

Values exist and have meaningonly within a web of other values,not in isolation. For example, if Isay that honesty is important tome, then you might expect that Iwill always tell the truth. But, infact, knowing that honesty isimportant to me will give you littleidea as to whether I will alwaystell the truth unless you know thepriority I place on honesty relativeto my other values. If I place ahigher priority on being liked thanon honesty, then I may not give

you honest feedback if I fear doingso would alienate you.

This is an example with just twovalues. The situation gets muchmore complex when our top 10 or20 values are in play. It also meansthat people with shared values, butwith different value priorities, maybehave in radically different ways.Thus, in working with anindividual or an organisation, it isnot enough to know what theirvalues are – you must also exploretheir value priorities. And, if youwant to help that individual ororganisation change, then the beststrategy is to help them re-prioritisetheir most important values, notfor them to prioritise their less-important values more highly.

One aspect of leading anintegrated, successful and fulfilledlife is to have chosen a life inwhich our high-priority values arenot in conflict on a frequent basis.Despite this, paradoxically it isthose times when our highestpriority values are in conflict, and

we are forced to choose betweentwo ideals in which we deeplybelieve, that are often the definingmoments of our lives. Suchsituations lead us to reflect deeplyon what is really important to us,and give us a particular clarityabout where our priorities lie. It isin these moments that ourcharacter develops.

Beliefs, values, experience andworld views

The only reality we can know isthe one that consists of theconstructs we have created.Values, beliefs and experiences areall constructs – values areconstructs that we hold asimportant; beliefs are constructsthat we hold to be true; andexperiences are constructs aboutreality. The way in which we seeand experience the world – ourworld view – depends on how weinterpret the outer world ofnature, things and people, andalso on our level of consciousness,which in turn depends on ourvalue priorities.

The value of values

Knowing what our valuespriorities are – and understandinghow they affect our world view,beliefs and actions – has a widerange of benefits:! When we practise, actualise

or embody our priority values,we experience our lives asmeaningful, significant andimportant.

! Values help us understand whywe believe what we believe –and, if we wish, to change it.

! Shared values are the basis ofrelationship – the better weunderstand our own and others’values, the more likely we are tohave meaningful and fulfillingrelationships.

! If we value something, we willgo after it – we will bemotivated by it. Thus, if weunderstand our values, we alsoknow what motivates us.

! Knowing our own values makesus more tolerant of others’

values – and of them as people– and so leads us to appreciatediversity.

! Being aware of our values helpsus answer some of the bigcoaching questions such as‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is thedifference I want to make?’

! Discerning our future valuesenables us to act more inten-tionally and move smoothlyinto future phases of our lives.

! Knowing our foundation valueshelps us deal better withdifficulty and stress and returnto equilibrium more quickly.

! Teams that are unaware of theirvalue priorities will tend tooperate at the lowest commondenominator world view; self-aware teams can operate at thehighest common denominatorworld view.

Values shift

Over the last few centuries, therehave been a succession of majorvalues shifts as society has movedfrom being largely agrarian,through industrialisation, totoday’s increasingly knowledge-based economy. This shift has notbeen even across the world, but,with globalisation in all its forms(commercial, informational,terrorist and so on), it has affectedmost people on the planet. Now, at the start of the 21st century, we find ourselves facing a set ofglobal social and environmentalchallenges. Dealing with challenges of this scale andcomplexity demands that we place a high priority on values of a similar scope and complexity(values such as ecological balance,global justice, human rights andconvivial technology), and that weshift to a world view which seesthe planet as a global society ofwhich we are all a part and forwhich we must care (the right-hand side of Table 1). We canperhaps start by exploring ourown values in order to answer thequestion ‘What is it that the worldof tomorrow needs that I canuniquely offer?’

Reference1 Don Beck and Christopher Cowan, Spiral Dynamics, Blackwell, 1996.

Further reading

Richard Barrett, Liberating the Corporate Soul, Butterworth Heinemann, 1998.

C lare Collins and Paul Chippendale, New W isdom II - Values-based Development, Acorn, 1995.

Stephen Covey and A Roger Merrill, First Things First, Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Brian Hall, Values Shift: a Guide to Personal and Organizational Transformation, Salesian Press, 1994.

Mike Munro Turner is a leading executive coach and mentor. He has over 10 years’experience of improving individual and organisational performance through workingwith senior executives to increase their leadership effectiveness, improve theirpersonal and business performance and accelerate the achievement of the organisa-tion’s vision. He also works with the Centre for Creative Leadership in Brussels ontheir leadership development programmes and is on the faculty of the School ofCoaching, where he trains coaches. As ‘Mike the Mentor’, he publishes a newsletteron mentoring and coaching. • Telephone: +44 (0) 1684 893380• E-mail: mike @mikethementor.co.uk• Website: www.mikethementor.co.uk

It is important to distinguish end values andmeans values

‘’

Questions for eliciting valuesWe relate to the world throughthe lens of our values priorities,which affects what we notice,think, feel, choose and do. Thisprovides us w ith a series ofquestions that we can use to elicitkey focus values quickly.

Events

Perceptions/thoughts

Feelings

Choices

Actions

What interests you?

What do you enjoy?

What is important to you?

What do you spendyour time doing?