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Years after taking a leadership course from Columbia Business School professor Paul Ingram, his former students carry a memento in their wallet: A short list of their values, which he guided them in writing and advised to keep close at hand. For others, it’s on their phone’s main screen, visible every time they reach for the device. When Prof. Ingram was waning in his exercise regimen at the gym, he had his values inscribed on a customized water bottle, boosting his efforts.
And if that sounds intriguing, you might also want to consider a similar approach for your Five No Ways, the unethical things you swear you will never do in your career, and the Five Temptations, bad actions you know you may be lured into accepting, which David W. Miller, director of Princeton University’s Faith & Work Initiative, recommends illuminating.
“In a world of relentless change, noise and uncertainty, clarifying our core values and reminding ourselves of them may be the most important actions we can make,” Prof. Ingram writes in What Do You Really Stand For?
He lists these benefits of developing a list:
- Clarity: When we are conscious of our values, it opens up avenues to achieve more of what matters to us and to have a positive impact on others. As one of his former students, Marco Amitrano, a senior partner of PwC’s U.K. and Middle East Alliance, told him: “Although you know you have values, if you don’t spend time thinking about what they really are and understanding why they are there, then you can’t really use them as an asset to help you do the right thing consistently and confidently.”
- Drive: Because our values determine what is good and important, they are a source of intrinsic motivation. They spur us forward or warn us when something is not worth pursuing because it is unconnected to our values.
- Resilience: Values also help us endure. “In times of crisis, grief or uncertainty, our values can remind us who we are and what truly matters,” Prof. Ingram says.
- Conflict resolution: Often behind the arguments and positions people take, there’s a value trying to be honored. Naming it can open up ways to move forward.
- Organizational culture: When employees and organizations share core values, collaboration improves, people feel more committed, job satisfaction rises and turnover decreases.
There are lists of values you can peruse on the internet to pinpoint your own. But he prefers activating memories of them in action, reflecting on very good, very bad or very important experiences, people or projects. For example: Think of a negative experience at work or in a volunteer group. Write down a word or two that captures why you were hurt or angry – what positive thing was missing from the situation. If you were upset because someone lied to you, write down honesty. Then move on to another reflection, perhaps this time a positive memory.
In time, you should have three to eight values that are a reasonable approximation of your values. Now check with a list of values to sharpen them, finding ones you missed or another that better describes you. Is accomplishment correct or should it be achievement – or excellence? Keep your list to no more than eight. “The goal isn’t to get a complete list of your values – it’s to produce a potent distillation of the ones that matter most to you,” he says.
You can then build those into a values structure, a hierarchy, that shows how your values relate to each other and which is the top value, the ultimate outcome. That describes how you feel when all your other values are satisfied. Typically, he says, it’s an abstract term for goodness, such as love, joy, satisfaction, fulfillment or harmony.
Prof. Miller’s Five No-Ways – unethical career choices you vow to never make – and the Five Temptations that might trip you up usually fall into five categories: Sexual misconduct, financial misconduct, violence, discriminatory practices or behavioural misconduct such as falsifying documents, lying, misrepresenting facts or taking credit for another’s work.
In The 5 Questions for Ethical Decisions, written with colleague Susan Richardson, he warns not to believe you will never succumb but instead to recognize it might happen and that self-awareness and self-honesty will increase your ethical fitness.
He also shares three lenses to employ for ethical decision-making. The first is The Right Lens, the rules and regulations we are supposed to follow, be it from the law, corporate policy or the Ten Commandments. The second is The Good Lens, which places less importance on the legality of an action and more on its consequences or purpose: Does this lead to the greatest good or happiness for the most people? The third is The Fitting Lens, which focuses on the distinct nuances of a decision, asking: What is the appropriate thing to do in this situation?
Those three lenses are deeper than it may appear at first glance, each a philosophical approach that is part of the puzzle – not the complete picture. Along with your wallet reminder, they can assist in navigating the ethical currents of your life.
Cannonballs
- Executive coach Katie O’Brien Ceccarini says far too many leaders are guilty of criticizing when they intend to give feedback. The difference between the two: Feedback without action is simply criticism. So a feedback conversation that doesn’t identify how to do things differently in the future leaves people feeling attacked, not invested in.
- Marketing advice from advertising guru Roy H. Williams: Find out what people already want, then offer them exactly that. Quit trying to convince customers that they should want what you are selling.
- Consultant Marlene Chism urges managers to transform themselves into managing coaches. When people see themselves as a manager, they monitor, hold others accountable, let policy lead and try to keep the peace. That leaves out the responsibility to develop people, build capability and intervene early enough to prevent breakdowns, which fits a coach. Managing coaches do both.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.