Here’s another discussion questions* (and my answer). This one, as it says on the tin, is about the importance of aligning your personal values with those of the groups that you are involved with:
- What are you personal values and how do they align with the groups you are a part of?
My Personal Values: As I mentioned before … ah, forget that – let me start again. My personal values, based on the thinking that I’m just about to do as I start typing them, are:
- Honesty,
- Humour,
- Learning,
- Creativity,
- Helpfulness,
- Revitalisation.
And no, I didn’t intend them to get longer the further I went (and I didn’t even rearrange them after I’d finished).
So, yeah, that’s the story of me. Happy? Satisfied? Have I given you all the information you want about me? To be honest, I’m not sure that there’s enough humour in that list and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that with a little creativity you can help to revitalise a list by doing just that. Hey now, would you look at the way I included all my values in that previous sentence! Am I amazing? (Yes I am!)
How My Personal Values Align: I’ve got this thing to do tomorrow. I’m part of a Green Values group and they’ve (maybe I should say we’ve) just decided to start local groups as offshoots of the national (and international) one(s). And guess who’s been volunteered (*flutters fingers at beautiful wife*) to lead the one for this area! Yeah, me. And I’m a bit at sea about it to be honest. I mean, sure, I’m doing this course on Leadership, and that’s all well and good, but the reason I’m doing the course is that I know squat about the subject. And it’s way too soon to expect me to soar into the stratosphere on what I’ve learned so far. From past experience, I’ll either do an Icarus or … erm … well actually, that’s the only option. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to see if I can align my personal values with those of the Green Movement. In that way I’ll see where the synergies lies and will be able to speak tomorrow from both my head and heart about matters pertaining to saving the planet etc. etc. Here we go:
| Personal Values | Green Values |
|---|---|
| revitalisation | radical transformation of society |
| diversity of the natural world | |
| honesty | |
| a sustainable society | |
| universal material security | |
| humour | |
| the well-being of others | |
| learning | |
| freedom from discrimination | |
| creativity | |
| democratic participation | |
| helpfulness | |
| non-violent solutions | |
| human indicators of success | |
| lifestyle changes |
Boy am I stuffed (and not in a good ‘I’ve just eaten a whole pizza’ way)! There’s virtually no alignment between my personal values and those of the first list I found on the internet that looks vaguely green. I need some help here! Way I see it, this can go one of two directions: (1) the way of Icarus or (b) the overnight transformation method. I think I’d prefer the second, but what’re the odds that I’m actually going to take a nose-dive into the Aegean tomorrow. Still, the weather forecast dahn sahf (translation: down south) is nice for tomorrow. Great day to break out the speedos, right?
Anyway, I’ll let you know how it went.
*These questions are (increasingly loosely) adapted from the ones Jeff Weiner (boss of LinkedIn) used during his talk: On Leadership. I’m still working my way through this 3.5 hour talk. Nearly done.
Previous questions in this series are here: Self-Awareness People-Awareness, Values-Awareness and Focused-Awareness.
