[MUSIC] The last lesson about story and point of view set the stage for our discussion about values. Many people are unaware of their values. Or, at least, are unable to communicate them clearly. In this lesson, we will define the term values. And describe how values affect how we make decisions. I will also explain why it's so important to know your own values. A value is a long-standing belief or guiding principle. It is a belief you use to judge what is right and wrong. I'm not really talking about laws. I'm talking about just, in a relationship between you and I. What do you believe is right or wrong? Oftentimes, our values are really unknown to us. We just know what's important. But we don't really know what our values are. The truth is we don't do a good job, in general, at helping people know their own values. I think we do a good or better job at telling people what their values should be. [LAUGH] But I'm not really sure that we help people really discover their own values. If you think back on lesson one. What we talked about is our values and our point of view are cultivated through our own experience. Which is why you, and I, and so many other. We have ten people in a room, we might have some shared values. But we may also have some that are very different. The reason why values and understanding values are so important is that they have significant influence on us as managers. The influences of values really impact our decision making. How do we choose to go in any particular situation? Our values influence our beliefs about what is right and wrong. Our values influence the assessments we make about other people. our values influence our initial snap judgments we make about people and experiences. And our values influence long and short term choices we make in friends, and colleagues, and partners. Values are very, very important things for us to recognize. So that we can understand why we are making the choices we're making. Why we have the beliefs and the judgments that we have. I want to talk to you a little bit about how influence of values can actually create conflict. Again, this is so essential for you as a manager to understand. That your values could be in direct conflict with somebody that you work with. Who's on your team. And neither one of you is right or wrong. This is what so important. So much time, though, goes into proving that we're right. That we don't really pay attention to other people's perspective. And unless we're talking about significant breaches of social contract. A lot of times, our values are just different. They're not right and wrong. Let's talk about how values can conflict. I might value open communication. As your manger, I'd love for you to talk to me about anything you want to talk about. I'm going to talk to you freely. I"m going to ask you a lot of questions. But you might value privacy. Can you see how those would conflict? You might feel intruded upon, invaded, if I ask you too many questions. I may value directness. You may value compassion. Directness can feel cold and hurtful. Whereas compassion might appear soft and overly empathetic. I might value group effort and teamwork, and you may value independence. There's conflict there. Please, come be a part of the group. You're like, no, I want to work over here by myself, and I'm good. I may value family. You may value work. So right there, there's an inherit challenge, and that happens a lot at work. That's a big one. I may value rules and rule-following. You may value freedom and lack of restriction. Again, that causes conflict. I may value trust. I may inherently just trust everybody because I believe in that value. You may be suspicious of people. That could be a value. Be suspicious, be thoughtful before you go all the way into a relationship. I may value cooperation. You may value competition. Inherently, they cause conflict. Because we don't talk about values very much. A lot of times what happens to folks is they just feel this discontent. They feel like they're not connecting with people. But the perspective that they hold is that the other people are wrong. [LAUGH] The thing is is they're not. They just have different values. For you as a manager, you have to understand yourself before you can ever help someone else. So understanding what your values are is essential for you to be effective. Not just because it's good to know them. But because you need to look at them and recognize. Okay, are these values helpful? Is believing this about the world actually an effective methodology? Effective belief system for what I do now? Or was this something that I created a long time ago as child that may no longer serve me? We have to recognize that. I want to give you an example of a manager that I have worked with. Several managers like this, who have competing values with people that they work with. In this case, we'll call the manager, Tim. We'll say that he believes in hard work and being very committed to your company. As a result, he works 10 to 12 hours a day. He has a model that he says all the time, first in, last out. So he believes as a manager you need to get there before everybody else does. And you need to leave after everybody else does. He actually thinks that if you only work eight hours a day. You are not committed to the organization. A traditional eight-hour work day isn't enough, as far as he's concerned. He believes that employees who work a lot of hours are more loyal. As a result, he judges employees based on how many hours they work. He makes these assessments that they don't work hard enough. And so he dismisses some people. He dismisses not just the people and their hours. He dismisses their contribution to the organization. Just because they don't work enough hours by his standard. So people who work for him feel like they can never meet his expectations. You could argue that somebody who's working eight hours a day is equally effective. But they have a value of balance, work/life balance. Family, religion, community service. Who knows? There could be a lot of other things that they do with those other four hours a day while Tim's at work. Is one of them right or wrong? Neither one is right or wrong, but the conflict is going to create problems. The problem, mostly, will be for Tim. Because he will continue to burn through employees who don't share his value system. That's why understanding our values is so important. In summary, values are an outcome of the beliefs we chose to believe on purpose. We create these beliefs based on our circumstances. Our values exist whether we acknowledge them or not. And we can choose to notice our values and decide if they're still relevant. Most importantly, what I think is so key for you to hear through this lesson. Is that your values, while very important to you, may differ from other people. And that doesn't make other people wrong. There is an opportunity for understanding, here. But the only way you can understand others is if you truly understand your own insights about yourself. In the next lesson, we're going to talk more about the manager's point of view.
