Posts tagged values
It’s advice you’re likely to hear several times in your lifetime, and read in countless books, essays and articles: “Be true to your values.”
What does it mean?
A good list: The author uses it to illustrate the difference between an average boss and an extraordinary boss.
Very much in keeping with the core teaching in Managing with Aloha, that our beliefs lead to our values, which in turn, lead to our behaviors.
Said another way, you must believe it before you’ll value it enough to always do it.
I recently sat with a college counselor who wanted “the 411″ on Managing with Aloha from my perspective as the book’s author. She’s new in her role with a local college which has used my book in their MBA program for several years now, and she called me for an interview when she began to read it. Our conversation was wonderful in taking me back to the basics, so much so that I re-wrote a FAQ page for www.ManagingWithAloha.com recalling her questions, and the highlights of our conversation.
We’ve been at this — our Talking Story conversation surrounding MWA — for nearly eight years now, a long time as the world of online conversation goes, and I thought you might like to review this with me: Is there any way that you’d like to return to the basics of your MWA foundation?
Read more: Back to the Basics.
Love these two stories: Values-based management (and leadership) is simply working with the integrity of what you believe in as being good. We need more of this to happen:
The beyond-profit perspective is familiar for those who concern themselves with value-creation.
In a strategy consulting exercise with a product manager at a reputed web services company, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the intrinsic value driving his company’s business was “happiness of users.” Profits mattered, as they allowed the company to continue increasing productivity and extending capability. I pressed further. “Do you mean that the happiness of your users is important because it leads to more profits?” “No,” he responded. “We are very clear that profits are important because they help us build great products that make our users happy.”
In another strategic consulting experience with a pharmaceutical company, a client team member raised the question, “What if clinical studies show that our treatment is not as effective as we had thought? Can we market it in words that are legal to get as much mileage as possible?” The head of the organization had been engaged — but silent till now. He now spoke slowly and decisively: “This company was founded on a core idea. Anything we do must pass three tests — it must be legal, it must be based on solid science, and it must help our patients. If it fails any of these tests, it’s not an option.”
Profitability is important, but only when placed in service of the organization’s core values. And when strategy loses touch with these values, beyond-profit leaders restore that connection.
Read the full essay: Going Beyond Profit
Related reading in the Archive Aloha at Talking Story:
On values and behavior, circa 1923: Imagine the indignation if a paper tried to print this today! If we can curb our ‘modern’ impulses with a dose of healthy humility, this is good advice worth accepting… I’d guess the men in our lives would likely agree.
10 Rules for Wives
In 1923, the Legal Aid Society of New York City published some advice to wives in the area, in the form of the following list of rules.(Source: Family (Great Contemporary Issues.); Image via.
- Don’t be extravagant. Nothing appeals more strongly to a man than the prospect of economic independence.
- Keep your home clean. Nothing is more refreshing to the eyes of the tired, nerve-racked worker than the sight of a well-tidied home.
- Do not permit your person to become unattractive. A slovenly wife makes a truant husband.
- Do not receive attention from other men. Husbands are often jealous and some are suspicious without cause. Do not supply the cause. Friendly attentions from others may be received in a spirit of perfect innocence. When reported by the busy-body they become distorted, often criminal.
- Do not resent reasonable discipline of children by their father. Mothers should not assume that all chastisement of a child by his father is severe and unjustifiable.
- Do not spend too much time with your mother. You may easily, in such a way, spend too little time at home.
- Do not accept advice from neighbors, or even stress too greatly that of your own family. Think for yourself. Have a plan of your own for solution of home problems. In all causes consult freely with your husband.
- Do not disparage your husband.
- Smile. Be attentive in little things. An indifferent wife is often supplanted by an ardent mistress.
- Be tactful. Be feminine. Men, in the last analysis, are but over-grown children. They do not mind coaxing, but they resent coercion. Femininity attracts and compels them. Masculinity in the females repels.
Scientific research corroborates what we’ve learned about our values in Managing with Aloha:
Let your better self rest assured: Dearly held values truly are sacred, and not merely cost-benefit analyses masquerading as nobel intent, concludes a new study on the neurobiology of moral decision-making… The Neurobiology of Integrity
If you are interested in reading more about the study itself, you can get the 16-page white paper here: “The price of your soul: neural evidence for the non-utilitarian representation of sacred values.” by Gregory S. Berns and company
Talking Story Archive Aloha: Value Verbing: Theme 2012 with your Aloha Spirit
From Shaun Usher:
In October of 1947, Mohandas Gandhi gave a piece of paper to his visiting grandson, Arun Gandhi, upon which was written the following list — a list he said contained “the seven blunders that human society commits, and that cause all the violence.” The next day, Arun returned home to South Africa, never to see his grandfather again. Gandhi was assassinated three months later.
Note: The same list was originally published by Gandhi in his journal, Young India, in 1925. It was titled, “Seven Social Sins.”
(Source: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, & Marriott; Image: Gandhi, via Wikimedia.)Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principles.
This is a beautifully written essay: Please read it slowly within the next moment of quiet reflection time you gift yourself, and then Nānā i ke kumu, look to your source too.
And it usually isn’t long, with experts, before they begin to talk, fashionably, about brains and chemicals. Biological determinism is one of psychology’s ugliest evasions, removing the poetic human from any issue. An appeal to the pseudo-certainties of science might seem finally to settle any question. But this is a moral issue rather than a scientific one; values are at stake here — not facts. It is in the irritating human realm where the interesting difficulties are, and where one might have to really think about and deal with an individual’s history, circumstances and reactions.
Essay found via Stowe Boyd, and Cathy N. Davidson:
“If we are feeling distracted, we should pay attention to that distraction. It may be telling us that there is something better elsewhere, something more deserving of our attention. Or it may be telling us we are on the wrong path, just when we thought we were zooming in to that perfect conclusion of a paragraph or a project. Or it may be telling us we need better tools, that the set-up we have is not fully appreciating the particularities and peccadilloes of our own work life and demands. Or it may be telling us that we need better partners, or a better method, someone or something to help us over the hurdle. Or it may just be telling us we are working too hard and we need to put down what we are doing and go outside for a walk, or stop for a cup of tea, or go for a run, or maybe just check out Facebook for a while. Distraction is our friend because it reminds us that we are fully human, not just workers, and that our lives are complex and, trying to shut out the complexity, may in fact turn out to be the least productive way to lead a life.”
Cathy N. Davidson - Distraction is Our Friend
Every one of us, in every moment, does the best she can with what she has. I think this world would be such an amazing place if we all remembered that.
As we’re encouraged by ‘Imi ola, the value of proactive destiny, guiding us toward our best possible life :)
Sounds like a book for my reading list. 3 things jump out at me:
