12. |
Align with Your Values |
Our values are one of the most important components of personal development, yet we often overlook them. By values I mean those principles and qualities that you hold dear. We all have a set of values — such as love, success, compassion, freedom, contribution, adventure, and security — that are important to us and determine our happiness. That is, our happiness or satisfaction in any situation depends on our most important values being met. And our behavior in any situation will be directly related to our particular set of values. Identifying and understanding your values will go a long way toward helping you create a life of joy and happiness.
Additionally, we attach importance to these values in a particular order and, as you’ll see below, have established “rules” that govern what has to happen for us to experience a particular value as being met. Do not be concerned if this sounds complicated. It is really pretty simple, as you will see as we go on.
Understanding other people’s values will improve communication and, in the workplace, will enable you to understand what drives your colleagues and how best to work with them. In business and sales, identifying a person’s values will raise you from being an ordinary salesperson to one who truly serves the customer. You will know how to present your product or service to address your customer’s most important concerns.
As a manager, if you ask an employee, “What’s most important to you in your work?” her first answer will, most likely, reveal her number one career value. If you continue to ask the question (e.g., “What else is important to you at work?”), you will uncover the other values that are important to her. For example, if her first answer to the question is “security,” you know that this is probably her number one value. If you continue asking, you will uncover more of her values, such as contribution, recognition, success, money, challenges, and so on.
Once you have your list, to really get to know your employee, you will begin asking which value is more important. For example, you might ask, “Is contribution more or less important than recognition?” If she were to answer, “Contribution is more important,” you might then ask, “Is success more or less important than contribution?” If it were less, you would ask, “Is success more or less important than recognition?” By doing this you come to understand the order in which this employee values these different things. You know already that security is her number one value since it was the first thing that came to her. Of course, you can easily check that by asking her to compare it to her other values.
Once you have elicited this list of values and their order of importance, you’ve gained quite a bit of insight into what drives your employee’s behavior. As her manager, you now know how to better motivate her and what types of assignments will best suit her. If her number one value is adventure and there is an opportunity for someone to go to a distant land and open a new office, she’ll be your ideal choice. On the other hand, if her number one value is family, she’s not going to be suited for this assignment, unless her family can travel too.
Whether or not you manage other people, it is a good idea to invest time in uncovering your own values, since they will determine your level of happiness. One of the reasons that so many people are unhappy is that their lives are out of alignment with their core values.
For example, someone whose number one value is freedom but has a job that requires him to work in an office with a structured schedule will most likely be unhappy. Someone whose top value is freedom may be happier in a position that allows him to be out of the office and to structure his day according to his needs. Your typical business-development people, working outside the office and running their own schedule, are generally those who value freedom highly.
One of my high-priority values is contribution. Because of this, I know I would not be happy or feel satisfied in any position that did not allow me to make a contribution. One of the reasons I love to write is that it allows me to give to humanity. I feel that what I write will help other people become happier and more successful, and that makes me happy.
Be aware that your values will change over time. A high-priority value for a young unmarried person on a career fast track may shift as that person gets married and has a family. The values that inspired the entrepreneur will shift as he or she becomes more successful. Often people who have become highly successful devote their time to serving their community. While achievement or success may have originally been their number one value, as they reached a certain level of success, their values changed. It is a worthwhile exercise to reassess your values every few years to see how they have evolved.
As noted above, understanding people’s values can be quite helpful when you are managing them. It is also an asset in sales. If I am presenting my product or service to you, and have taken the time to uncover your top values, I can match the benefits of my product to your values. This will provide you with a higher level of service and will increase the likelihood of my making a sale, since I am addressing what’s most important to you.
People buy things for their own reasons. Knowing what motivates the buyer, I can demonstrate how my product or service aligns with her values. The more she sees the value in it for herself, the more likely she is to buy.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose I am selling luxury automobiles. As a result of asking you, “What’s most important to you in an automobile?” I learn that your number one value is safety for your family. Knowing this, I will concentrate my presentation on the safety features of the car and point out each of the safety and security benefits of owning it.
On the other hand, if I learn that your top value in a car is style or luxury, I will change my presentation to emphasize the car’s comforts and its elegant appearance. I may point to the leather interior and the enhancements that separate it from other, less stylish automobiles.
I once visited a luxury car dealer on a quiet Saturday morning. It was quite early and there was no one in the showroom but a lone salesperson and me. He politely asked if he could help me. I pointed to a car on the showroom floor and asked what colors it came in. The salesman ignored my question. He had just returned from a training seminar where he had learned all the safety features of the car, and he proceeded to tell me, in great detail, how safe this automobile was.
He went on and on, totally disregarding what was important to me, because he, not I, was interested in the safety of the vehicle. I thanked him and left. It’s not that I don’t care about safety; I do. It’s just that I assume an expensive car is well built and safe. Besides, I do not buy a car with the thought of crashing it. All I wanted to know was what colors were available. Had he simply answered my question and addressed my number one value instead of his own, he may have made the sale.
Understanding another person’s values increases your ability to effectively communicate with him. Understanding your own values enables you to make decisions that will leave you feeling happier and more fulfilled. It is quite simple: if you make a decision that is out of alignment with your top values, you will be unhappy, no matter what else you do. If you align your life and work with your unique order of values, you will be happier and more productive, and you will enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling life.
In your journal answer the following questions:
• What five values are most important to me in my life?
• What five values are most important to me in my work?
Next, prioritize your personal value list by asking, “Is this more important than that?” and so on until you have ranked the values in order of importance.