Identifying values

Make a list of 5 times you can remember being at your happiest. Make another list of 5 times when you most felt a real sense of pride. And make a final list of 5 times when you most felt a sense of achievement or fulfilment. It is okay if there are overlaps between these lists.

Then consider what was actually happening that led to these feelings within you? What was ‘winning out’ and what was ‘being beaten’? Do these answers reflect things that you would make sacrifices to regain?

Spend a bit of time with these answers, and try and represent them symbolically as drawings or images (or even models) – the most important at the top, and then coming down in a column?

If you can do this, the visual component will help significantly in you better re-assimilating them. But if that is not working for you, please translate them into five sentences which begin with the words: “I value …”?

Once you have done this, place them somewhere prominent, and reflect on them (maybe over the next few days). Feel free to adapt them or change them as you get more familiar with what they mean to you. And consider how this reflection may be helping you in your thinking on other things.

Systemic values delivery

Values do inherently influence our behaviours and choices. But if our true values are not particularly clear to us, this can be an inefficient process. As a result we can find ourselves being drawn in directions that do not help us. And we can waste opportunities to influence our situation positively.

Back in adventure #035 we looked at how we feed different aspects of our character. We can do something similar with our values.

On a sheet of A4 paper, draw a grid 6 squares wide and 6 deep. Then in the first column, write ‘Activities’ in the first box, and make a list of 5 specific things you did yesterday in the boxes below.

In the 5 remaining boxes along the top row, write down (or draw) your 5 values. Then in the other boxes: Firstly, take a black pen and write down how each activity helped you deliver each of your values; Secondly take a different colour pen and write down ways in which they could have helped further.

Thirdly ask yourself three questions. One, would reflecting on my values when I started this activity have helped me have more impact in line with my values? Two, am I doing the right balance of activities to deliver the value I want to deliver? And three, am I actually making the sacrifices I am willing to make for these values?

Consider what you will to do about the result.

Team Values

Consider repeating the exercise for your team meetings.

Do you already have values that you are pursuing as a team or organisation? If not, work with your team to identify what they should be.

Then repeat the grid from the Blue track on a flipchart or shared whiteboard. But down the left hand side column, write the key sessions in your last meeting. And along the top, write your team values. Then look at how each session helped deliver your values, and its potential to do even more.

Finally, ask the team two of the three questions. One, would reflecting on our values when we started this meeting have helped us have more impact in line with our values? And two, are we doing the right balance of activities to deliver the value we want to deliver?

Consider as a team what you will to do about the result.