It is impossible to make suitable major life or career decisions if you are confused about what you most value in life. Plato told us that the unexamined life is not worth living. More recently Kevin Eikenberry, Susan David, and Deepak Chopra have all emphasized the importance of knowing your values to a meaningful life, well being and leadership. Despite all of this received wisdom, my experience in teaching executives, MBAs and undergraduates confirm that very few people ever go through a rigorous process to clearly delineate their hierarchy of values. So many of us go through our careers and lives with a fuzzy sense of our values and we get distracted by the shiny objects the world presents. The net result is poor decisions and a path that proves ultimately unsatisfying. We end up in a job, with a partner or in an industry where there is a misalignment between the values we want to live by versus those we do live by.
This became very clear to me one day when I was sitting at my desk working on some research. The phone rang and it was a former student who had taken my Leadership and Emotional Intelligence class years earlier as an MBA student. He had reached out because he was terribly unhappy in his very high paying job on Wall Street. During the class, we had used some very penetrating psychological instruments to measure personality and motive profiles. I reminded him that those instruments had shown that he was high in interpersonal sensitivity, empathy and that his motive profile had much higher score for altruism that it did for commerce (making money) or power (wanting to be in charge). The reason he was unhappy was that he was in the wrong job and the wrong industry. There was a misalignment. He had chosen the shiny object and when he got it he found it that it produced frustration rather than gratification.
At DiscernU we use the Hogan Motives Values and Preferences Inventory and other instruments and exercises to sort through the relative weight you assign to values such as autonomy, money, achievement, affiliation, aesthetics, hedonism, growth, security, salvation, wisdom, service to others, learning, and others. What is critical is to understand clearly the RELATIVE importance of each value to you. Only then and you align yourself with chasing the most critical one’s values and make the right trade-offs in decisions.
Anonymous
7 Jul 2020This video perfectly explains why I am somewhat unhappy at my current place of work (an investment bank). While most of what I do is event management, which I am good at and enjoy a decent amount, I feel a misalignment between myself/my vales with the kind of company and industry I am a part of (and this misalignment is glaringly obvious to anyone who knows me well). And, I know that other kinds of event planning jobs in other industries would make me much happier. I keep telling myself that staying with this company for now is “for a good cause” for my future family, as the pay is pretty good and the benefits (especially the full tuition reimbursement for this MBA and the healthcare benefits I’ll be able to put my future children on) are amazing. Plus, what other employer will hold my job for me at full salary and benefits while I spend the first 5 precious months of each kid’s life with them at home? Hopefully after some time I will have the conviction and courage to leave and find a job that makes me happier, even if it feels less stable or does not compensate me as well.
qiwei
7 Jul 2020I have a question. which is sometimes it is hard for us to realize what is best for us. Sometimes we look back and we figured that we made the mistake, but back in time we don’t really know that. I think we are getting wiser while we grow older.
admin
9 Jul 2020reflecting and learning as we go is a huge part of living a good life and having a good career
Ziji
7 Jul 2020Does personal value equal to a personal career goal?
admin
9 Jul 2020for most people, I would say no…they are disconnected
Margaret
8 Jul 2020It’s easy and tempting to take what others deem to be successful and assign that idea of success to ourselves. In choosing a concentration for my MBA program, I began to consider a finance concentration- something that is entirely new for me and admittedly, less appealing than other concentrations. When really evaluating the reasons for pursuing an MBA, and my professional intents after completing my degree.. I am forced to ask myself: am I attracted to the idea of something because society equates it with success? OR can I recognize this distortion, trust my strengths, and pursue another concentration?…
admin
9 Jul 2020great question, if your strengths would make you materially better at something else, wouldn’t you have a competitive advantage in that?
Cristian
9 Jul 2020It is very interesting to me how we do get distracted by the shiny objects that derail us from our core values. This ties back to one of the previous blogs, where it was discussed the inability to understand what makes us happy and motivated. one thing I would like to understand a bit better is, how do we know to balance these values and desires that it might be sometimes counter-intuitive. For example, someone that has high altruism and desire to help others but at the same time values status money and security.
admin
9 Jul 2020many of us have values that conflict which makes life more confusing and difficult to choose a path with integrity. One might say that the essential solution here is to increase the degree to which we make conscious trade-offs and to periodically check to see if we are moving in a good direction or a bad direction. Are we sailing to the destination that we will value or are we adrift?
Marissa
9 Jul 2020After reading all of the blog posts, it seems like it all returns to your hierarchy of values. Your personality, strengths, motives, etc. are all closely tied to what you want in life. I think it’s easy to confuse values with motives since a lot of the same language is used to describe both. I’d love to discuss further, but in my mind the difference between the two is action. Values are what you want out of life and motives are how you use those values to drive your choices. This blog post mentions the difference between what you want in life and what you actually live by. Understanding your motives is key to bridging the gap between the two.
admin
9 Jul 2020very insightful comment..understanding the hierarchy of values is essential to self management
William
9 Jul 2020“So many of us go through our careers and lives with a fuzzy sense of our values and we get distracted by the shiny objects the world presents. The net result is poor decisions and a path that proves ultimately unsatisfying.” This is what we are all trying to avoid. Interested to learn more.
admin
9 Jul 2020shiny objects and lots of distractions….easy to get lost
Nicholas
9 Jul 2020I was going to have the same quote as will because that really stuck out to me. To think that we’re working a job where we get paid through “shiny objects” it’s hard to find value in other places.`
Paul
9 Jul 2020I participated in a similar workshop where we analyzed my test results and it was very helpful. One conclusion I made was that I need to maintain a healthy work/life balance. This recognition is important for someone like myself who is considering a career change.
admin
9 Jul 2020great insight…these types of insights are important ways to improve one’s life and career
Hayley
9 Jul 2020When you do end up in a situation where you are unsatisfied, it’s essential to reflect upon the situation and understand why you are dissatisfied. There may be many factors that are contributing to the situation. One time I had an internship where I wasn’t given a lot to do. I was unsatisfied with this internship because I wasn’t being challenged, and I didn’t have a supervisor who wanted to mentor me. This situation taught me that I valued being challenged and needed a team that valued me and my contributions.
admin
9 Jul 2020great insight
Jay
9 Jul 2020So true. Our values are such an inherent part of who we are that it really is impossible to ignore them in the professional contexts of our lives.
Holly
9 Jul 2020One question that popped into my head was how do determine if your values match how you’re living your life? This definitely relates to the hierarchy of values because of the misalignment between the values we want to live by versus the ones we do live by. There needs to be a clear distinction in order to determine how you are living.
admin
10 Jul 2020great point. One way to do this is to take a bunch of decisions that you have made in the past 10 years and identify what value system would explain these choices. Then match it up to you apriori value hierarchy that you did