How to operate from your values

‘We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and sincerely.’ – Enron, ‘Our Vision, Our Values’.

In business and politics, talk about values is cheap. It is easy to be cynical when organisations that espouse values like integrity are found to conduct themselves unethically.

Yet for organisational consultant Lisa Doig, values are the bedrock of sustainable performance. As an external facilitator for professional services firm McKinsey, where she specialises in culture change and transformation, American-born Doig is now a founding director of a Perth-based leadership consultancy specialising in transforming one’s leadership through values.

Values need meaning

In Doig’s work, values are not static ‘nice-to-haves’ captured in mission and values statements; rather, frequent reference to a set of meaningful values are what makes teams cohere and leaders inspire. Equally, values that are in conflict or unacknowledged are more often than not at the root of dysfunctional teams or a breakdown in performance.

Something she sees often in executives in their early 40s is the question, ‘Is this all there is?’

‘It gets to the point where they believe, I can’t do this anymore, or their job has stalled.’

Many leaders have a clear idea of the values that they aspire to live by, but not necessarily the values that they operate from right now.

Doig believes that for values to have any currency, they must be genuinely held and role-modelled by those in the top echelons of an organisation. ‘What is required today of leaders, with the level of complexity and ambiguity is to operate from a place of courage; courage to live their top values. Instead, many operate out of fear of not making the next quarter’s targets, giving bad news to stakeholders, and so on.’

Values don’t always add up

Many leaders have a clear idea of the values that they aspire to live by, but not necessarily the values that they operate from right now. It is in this gap that Doig does most of her work, drawing on the writings of Dr J F Demartini, Robert Kegan, Richard Barrett’s Seven Levels of Consciousness model and her own experience in working with clients in four continents.

‘When I start working with a leader, we’ll identify their top 10 values. Then I’ll ask, “What are your real values? How do you spend your time and money? What do you have anxiety about? How do you fill your space?” We will then integrate these to show a real picture of their top three values – these are the values they are truly operating from.’

Doig says, from her experience, only one out of 10 leaders know what their top values are. ‘You might have 10 values, but at any one time, you’re operating only with your top two, and they are usually the ones that are in conflict. Whatever is your biggest challenge in life right now is, most often, a conflict in your top two values. Something challenging to think about is – whatever you have in your top two values is your greatest personal unmet need.’

Doig engages leaders in a kind of personal archaeological excavation – seeking the roots of closely held values and associated beliefs formed by significant life experiences, and childhood.

Tightly held values often belie their opposite. One client nominated ‘inclusiveness’ as one of her top three values – ‘You can hear within that the belief that “I am not included”. Yet she created a dynamic in her team of tension and competition – the exact opposite of inclusiveness.’

Another common value for clients is ‘fairness’. ‘Typically something happened to them that was very unfair and now part of their identity becomes standing up for others who don’t have a voice. There is a positive aspect to that belief, but that belief can also block their progress, because they may be seeing “unfairness” where that’s not actually the issue.’

Top three values

Suddenly Doig asks me what my top three values are, and I realise I don’t know. After some quick thinking, the first two I nominate are the sort of thing that would be acceptable on a LinkedIn profile. The third is closer to the bone: from the past, another country where they take no prisoners. It’s not a value that plays ‘nice’ with other people. And it is at that moment I can see how revealing this process is, a new way to look at my reactions and interactions with people.

Another client was a functional head in a large finance organisation whose 360-degree feedback revealed, to his shock, that he was highly reactive. ‘The team felt really disempowered by his behaviour. When we looked at his current challenges, the value that was tripping him up was his belief around achievement and need to be in control.’

Beliefs from parents

‘At the root of this was a belief that he would never be good enough. It came from one of his parents, which is very common. We looked at how that belief actually helped him in his life. One of the ways of transforming mindsets is to look at both sides of the coin — “How has this often challenging life experience served you, and how has it not served you? Most importantly, who have you become as a result?” In that moment, the anger he had for the parent dissolved – as he said, “it was an epiphany”.

After releasing the long-held emotion and judgement around the parent, this released the belief from ‘I’ll never be good enough’ to ‘I am enough’. It was amazing how something so simple yet so profound transformed his relationships with his team, who were stunned at the turnaround. Doig says, simply, ‘He began to open his heart’.

Everyone has a few core values and then there are additional values that are in transition. The work is not a matter of identifying ‘aberrant’ values and then eradicating them. They will have served a purpose for a long time, but need to be held up to the light and integrated in order for the leader to evolve to their real potential.

Consciously creating destiny

‘Everybody has their pattern: it’s often revealed when you have a disproportionate emotional response to an otherwise small event. Yet each one of those reactions can be a gift. In this work, we help leaders become highly conscious of their values and purpose so they can consciously create their destiny.

‘That’s what a leader should be doing. The No. 1 task for a leader is to become conscious of their top values – work with them, transform them, evolve them.’

Elisabeth Lopez

Lisa Doig is a Director of Corporate Evolution. She will deliver a participatory workshop on ‘The Power of Values’ at the Centre for Workplace Leadership’s Future of Work conference.

Discounted tickets to the Future of Work are available for SMEs; to access two-day tickets for up to 60% off email [email protected]

A free tool identifying your top 10 values: Barrett Values Centre Personal Values Assessment