Discovering your values
Discovering your values
Discovering your values
Many motivation strategies assume that we all respond to the same incentives. Most commonly money is used to improve motivation, staff retention and ambition. However, employee motivation is much more complicated than that.
Understanding what motivates the individuals in your company is key to designing employee motivation strategies that really work on an on-going basis.
What Are Values?
We all have our own view about what is important in life. Family might be the most important element of one person's life. Someone else might think that learning is central. Another might love to take risks and see life as an adventure. These are clues to an individual's values.
Below is a list of words that identify some possible values. To establish what your values are, ask yourself the followi
ng questions:
- If my life were perfect, what would I still believe was important?
- What sort of activities do I spend my time on in order to feel that my life has meaning?
- What do I really care about?
- When I am being my true self, what personality traits show up?
- At a core level, what makes me do what I do?
- When life seems to flow and time passes without me noticing, what kinds of activities am I doing?
- What do I do naturally? Who am I naturally?
Your Core Values
Read through the list of approx. 150 values words below. Using the questions above to spark you, identify your 4 core values (choose your 4 from the words under the headings, not the headings themselves). There may be many more than 4 but see if you can reduce the list to 4 values that are more important. If you have values that don't appear below that is fine - the idea is to end up with 4 words which really express who you are at a core level.
ADVENTURE VALUES - Risk, danger, gamble, experiment, the unknown, speculation, endeavour, thrill, dare, quest, venture.
BEAUTY VALUES - Grace, attractiveness, magnificence, refinement, loveliness, gloriousness, elegance, radiance, taste.
CATALYST VALUES - Impact, turn on, spark, stimulate, move forward, unstuck others, encourage, energise, touch, coach, influence, alter.
CONTRIBUTION VALUES - Serve, assist, facilitate, provide, improve, endow, minister to, foster, augment, strengthen, grant.
CREATIVE VALUES - Design, imagination, conceive, perfect, invent, ingenuity, plan, assemble, synthesise, originality, build, inspire.
DISCOVERY VALUES - Learn, locate, discern, detect, realise, distinguish, perceive, uncover, observe.
FEELING VALUES - Make, to glow, energy flow, to experience, to feel good, in touch with, sense, be with, sensations.
LEADERSHIP VALUES - Guide, cause, reign, persuade, inspire, arouse, govern, encourage, influence, enrol, rule, model.
MASTERY VALUES - Expert, dominate field, pre-eminence, outdo, superiority, greatest, set standards, adept, primacy, best, excellence.
PLEASURE VALUES - Have fun, sensual, be entertained, be hedonistic, bliss, play games, sex, be amused, sports.
RELATING VALUES - Be connected, to unite, be bonded, part of community, to nurture, be integrated, family, be linked, be with.
SENSITIVITY VALUES - tenderness, be present, show compassion, touch, empathise, respond, perceive, support, see.
SPIRITUAL VALUES - Be aware, relate to God, honouring, be accepting, devoting, be passionate, be awake, holy, religious.
TEACHING - educate, inform, prime, instruct, prepare, uplift, enlighten, edify, explain.
WINNING VALUES - Prevail, score, triumph, accomplish, acquire, predominate, attain, win over, attract.
(Extracted from "Transform Your Life" by Carole Gaskell. Published by Thorsons.)
Values Motivation
When designing your company's Employee Motivation Strategy take employee values into account. E.g. if many employees say "learning" is a value, a scheme that rewards effort, commitment and loyalty with access to advanced skills training schemes, personal development workshops or book vouchers could be a highly motivating bonus.
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An understanding of your values can help you find your ideal job.
A number of Executive Coaches write for this website. You can download a number of in-depth articles on finding your ideal job, interviews and job applications by visiting the professional development section of this site.
In particular we recommend three articles written by "Get Your Ideal Job" coach, Peter Bernard:
Top 5 Tips for finding your ideal job
