Values, choices and trade-offs
In this post I share some reflections on why values are so helpful in making decisions and understanding trade offs.
Why I love working with values
When we’re working, we are faced with constant options. Opportunities to make choices. We may see these, or we may not. Choices about how to show up with people. Choices about how to present information. A big ‘strategic’ decision. Large or small, these opportunities to be intentional are always there.
What influences our choices? It could be that we go with what we feel is expected, or ‘the way a thing is done’. Or our natural preferences or what feels ‘right’ or comfortable to us may lead us in a certain direction.
Far more powerful, is to have a set of shared values to guide these decisions.
When I work with organisations around strategy or ways of working, values are essential to making decisions that are right for that organisation, in that context. There are often many valid ways forward, but one way forward will be true to the values, and therefore will feel right; it will be easier to explain why that path was chosen and not another.
An example
I was supporting a small organisation recently to reflect on what was going well and less well. We used the metaphor of:
- A boat — representing their organisation
- Wind — what was propelling them forward
- Anchor — what was dragging them down or holding them back
- Island — the opportunities they could see in the future
Something propelling them forward (wind) was their deep relationships with the people they supported. Something dragging them down (anchor) was the lack of boundaries around their work which impacted on their workload and work life balance. However, through discussion, it was clear that relationships were deeply rooted in their philosophy and approach. It was a held and lived value, even though they had never articulated or designed official values.
So, prioritising deep relationships was a choice they were making, based on values.
Even over statements
A powerful way to express a choice like this is to use a format called an ‘even over statement’. Even over statements describe trade-offs and make them explicit. Jurrian Kamer describes it in his piece on even over statements:
An even over statement is a phrase containing two positive things, where the former is prioritized over the latter.
A good thing even over another good thing
I reflected this organisation’s choice back to them in that format:
As an organisation, you value creating and maintaining deep relationships with the people you support even over being able to set clear boundaries that protect your time.
The important thing here is that the opposite statement would also be valid, but not right for them, because of their values.
Tips
- Next time you have a choice or a decision to make, reflect on how the different options you have relate to your organisation or group’s values.
- If you don’t have agreed values, or if you have ‘official’ values but they don’t feel like they’re the true values of the organisation, what do you feel the values of the group truly are? Why? What behaviours can you see which suggest to you that these are your values? What does this tell you about the decision you’re making?
- If you disagree with a proposed choice, consider whether this option jars with your own personal values. What does this mean for you?
- Where you have more than one valid or ‘good’ option, but a trade off is inevitable (you can’t have both good things), try expressing these choices as even over statements. Which one feels more true to your values? Does this help you to reach agreement on a way forward?
