Values Drive Behavior, So Shouldn’t You Know What They Are?

Values.  We use the word all the time, Brene Brown says in her new online course called, Daring Greatly.  We says things like: “That’s great value. How much do you value this? What value would you place on this? How dare he not value me. I feel like I’ve been devalued. Our currency just lost value,” etc.  When Dr. Brown said that, I realized that facilitators use the word “values” all the time as well.  We conduct sessions on how to help a group find its values. We ask, “What will be the value of doing it this way versus another way?” Or ask, “What value do you place on this outcome?”, etc.

However, when we are asked by groups to help them come up with a set of core values, it is a more challenging process. In this blog, I try to make it easy for you. I have been intrigued by something Dr. Brene Brown has asked us to do in her online course. She is encouraging us to narrow down all our important values to our top ONE or TWO!  Would this be helpful for organizations also? She makes the argument that for a particular arena of our life or time in our life, we can be guided by this one value. Ironically, she calls it your North Star value. I named my company 20 years ago because I loved the stars and had always found the North Star in the Big Dipper constellation comforting to me as a child and young adult when things seemed hopeless, I could always count on my North Star being there.

Below, we demonstrate how to guide groups through the important steps of values creation with our two short videos.

The What and Why of Value Creation

How to Create Values in Groups

I do not tell you how to help a group get it down to one value except at the end of the second video, I suggest a question that might help them really narrow the list down,

“Which value(s) are key to your mission?”

My question(s) to you:

1. Do you think it would be helpful to have an organization or team build consensus on a single value to guide their way? Let me know.
2. These two short videos represent a very rough prototype of what we will start working on for 100’s of tools, techniques that can be used by facilitators worldwide. We will start with offering these videos with our virtual Meetings That Rock course staring in March. Please also let us know, what is most helpful in a series of videos on a particular tool, concept or method? We want to keep them short and pithy with a helpful written guide for details. Send us a message.

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