How to Navigate Life, page 12
Add Value with Your Archetype
To be sure, value types and skill sets can’t tell us everything about ourselves (for example, our history, integrity, character strengths). But they do tell us about how we view the world, the values we prioritize, what motivates us, the kinds of choices we make, and even how we might respond to stress. Knowing our type is not the final destination, but it gives us a jumping-off point for a much greater journey.
One of the benefits of value archetypes is that they remind us of our fundamental unity as human beings. When we search below the differences of gender, race, socioeconomic status, and so on, we discover a deeper layer of commonality. Trailblazers are like other Trailblazers, and they share the same value sets as others of their type. Instead of emphasizing “culture fit,” which is often a way of weeding out people who don’t look and act like us due to cultural differences, organizations can tune in to “value add.” When we think in terms of “value add” versus “culture fit,” what we’re doing is recognizing that people with very different motivational types can share the same purpose. They can contribute to organizations and beyond in their unique ways. They can complement the values that others bring into the place.
Organization Archetypes
Just as individuals have sets of core values, so too do schools, businesses, and other organizations. We’re not talking about the core values organizations might say they value on their websites or have painted on their walls, we are referring to what they actually value through their actions, decisions, and behaviors. The same four archetypes apply to organizations and departments within organizations. Organizations take on different value sets depending on their unique organizational life cycle. Understanding the values of organizations can help us understand where our young people will thrive.
Trailblazing Organizations
Start-ups or brand-new companies will naturally adopt Trailblazer values because they will need to innovate to survive. A tech start-up racing to develop a flying car is likely to emphasize innovating and “failing fast.” They would not be about conforming to existing standards or following the leads of others. Rather they would want to be pioneers, motivated by growth and disruption, instead of stability.
Building Organizations
Fairly new companies with some traction may fall in line with the Builder archetype as they have moved beyond innovation to broadening and building their business to scale and grow. A company that has found traction and is rapidly growing will need a Builder to come in and operationalize their processes and standardize their systems. Where Trailblazers create new ideas, Builders make them operational.
Champion Organizations
Fairly mature companies with an established market and solid track rec-ord will look for Champions who can optimize their existing strategies. These companies have figured out what works and will look for high performers who strive toward individual success. These companies need Champions who won’t need to change or disrupt the status quo.
Guardian Organizations
When organizations become established institutions they may function as Guardians focused on sustaining their organization. A 150-year-old financial institution or a long-established automobile company that prides itself on its tradition of trustworthiness and reliability will seek out Guardians to protect their brand. These organizations value stability more than risky growth.
Life Cycle of a Company
Strategic Values
Start-up
Type 1: The Trailblazer (Innovate)
Grow up
Type 2: The Builder (Broaden)
Maturity
Type 3: The Champion (Optimize)
Maintain
Type 4: The Guardian (Sustain)
Recognizing the life cycle of a company can help us pinpoint its values. When we do that, we know what the company is looking for in its employees. Early-stage start-ups will look for people who are creative critical thinkers who can generate new ideas. Organizations that are growing up will look for people who can operationalize processes and scale existing systems. More mature organizations will look for people who can optimize their proven strategies to drive performance. Finally, established legacy institutions will look for workers who are committed to sustaining the legacy and tradition that’s made them successful.
Where Will You Be Valued?
Identifying our value archetypes can be revolutionary, as it provides clarity for why we live and work the way we do. Our value types also help us understand why we feel frustrated or blocked in a particular club, school, or work setting.
So ask yourself: “In what type of environment would I thrive given my values?” Where are you a “value add”? In what setting or department would your values and approach be aligned with the approach and needs of the setting? In other words, what organization would value your values? Where are your values needed most?
Within organizations all four types are needed. Purposeful organizations are very intentional in making sure the values of an individual are aligned with and being honored in their department, and that the values of the department are in harmony with the larger organization’s values.
Trailblazers in the organization may do well in departments or on projects that involve innovation and start-up. They may be given opportunities and freedom to experiment, learn, and grow. This may include drumming up new customers and serving stakeholders in ways that think outside the box. Projects may have guardrails in place, but wide boundaries for open and free exploration.
Builders may add value in roles that focus on growing and stretching the organization itself. They would thrive in roles that allow them to operationalize core processes and expand the scope of work. They may be invited to engage in initiatives tied to equity and opportunities for underrepresented members of the organization, like the diversity, equity, and inclusion department. Organization leaders would need to be open to Builders pushing the envelope in order to make the organization stronger and more inclusive.
Champions who value their freedom to achieve independently may be given roles that come with clear instruction and structure, but not multiple layers of oversight. They may enjoy optimizing and expanding the reach of the organization by participating in development or sales and marketing.
Guardians may be happy in roles focused on preserving the established institution and keeping the organization stable, such as general counsel of the legal department, accounting, or human resources. They may be invited to help uphold organizational traditions and rituals by planning important community events. And they may be recruited to help with initiatives that create connection and preserve the organization’s culture.
Working where you are a value add does not necessarily mean you must stick with a department or organization that shares your same archetype. It’s simply paying attention to where you will be needed or personally energized even if it means butting heads with people who think differently from the way you do. For example, you may be a CFO Guardian archetype who is fiscally very responsible, and you are needed and energized by working in Trailblazer organizations (e.g., start-ups).
Hiding in Plain Sight
A seventeen-year-old high school student we’ll call Lydia was engaged in college and career counseling with Tim during her junior and senior years. She was a motivated young woman on track to be the first in her family to go to college. Not only was she an outstanding student, she was passionate about combating social injustices. For years, she focused on fighting for sustainable and humane food policies to be adopted in western Massachusetts. She regularly burst into Tim’s office urging him to watch the latest Netflix documentary exposing troubling practices of America’s corporate-controlled food industry. Early in her senior year, she organized a campaign to serve more locally grown and organic food in various high schools’ cafeterias. It was clear that her vocational aspirations would involve social advocacy, which would draw on her fearlessness, independent spirit, and determination to take down oppressive authorities and systems. Because Tim understood Lydia’s core values, when she announced her plan to enlist in the army, he knew that expressing curiosity might be needed more than simply congratulations. Indeed, it didn’t take long before she came out with her fears about failing in the college admissions process. As a first-generation prospective college student, she was anxious and unsure about her abilities. Rather than pooh-pooh her decision, Tim worked with Lydia to revisit her core values, and to consider whether the army was a good fit with them.
Lydia recalled that her core values were equality, individuality, creativity, and social justice. Together they googled the US Army’s core values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. Through an honest and open dialogue comparing these with her own core values, Lydia recognized that the army wasn’t a good fit for her. She realized that joining the army might stifle her style of self-expression, and she also worried about how her independent and defiant personality would mesh with the army’s culture of discipline.
When Tim asked what had instigated her interest in the army in the first place, Lydia tearfully admitted that paying for college might bankrupt her family. She saw the military as a “free pass” to college. And so more core values surfaced: family, security, and independence. For Lydia, going to college threatened these values. After viewing her decision-making through the lens of these core values, she recognized that her motives for joining the army were fear-based. Together, Tim and Lydia worked to overcome her fears of failing in college and to explore financially viable college options given her family’s needs. Lydia has matriculated to a state college in Massachusetts and is majoring in political science. What’s more, the college’s in-state tuition made attending eminently affordable, alleviating Lydia’s financial fears.
* * *
The truth is, we all know what it’s like to have a conversation with a student who is clearly making the wrong decision. They’re hanging with the wrong crowd, dating the wrong person, taking up the wrong major or a career path that’s unrealistic. Getting them to see the error of their ways is usually not that easy. As they get older and become their own bosses, all the persuasion, manipulation, and guilt-tripping in the world can fail to do any good. The reality is, we can’t make all their decisions for them. But we can teach them to make wise decisions for themselves.
Let’s be honest, some of us wonder if we can trust our young people enough to relinquish our control. But what if we knew that there was a way to help students make truly wise and effective decisions for themselves—wouldn’t it be such a relief to hand the rudder over to them? By the time our people are heading to college, our goal is to serve as crew members of their team, rather than as their skippers.
Let’s revisit how Tim helped Lydia with decision-making. He helped her uncover her fears and aspirations in the college search process though the language and power of core values. Then, when Lydia was clear on her own core values, rather than making decisions for her, he asked a simple question: Which choices align with your values and which don’t?
It’s through the power of identifying core values that we can teach young people to make the right decision, instead of making it for them.
So What? (Core Values Aren’t Just a Nice Thing)
Research shows that good things happen when we align our life choices with our core values. Core values put us in the zone: we perform better, we get unstuck, our mental health and quality of life improve.
They are also powerful mood boosters; aligning with our core values makes us feel better about ourselves. They boost our self-esteem, confidence, and self-worth.9 They improve our relationships, too. They make us feel more loved and connected to others, which in turn makes our own lives richer.10 Just reflecting on our core values makes us happier, less depressed, and less anxious.11 And when students are living out core values, they bring their A game to school. Students who tap into their core values are more academically motivated, get better grades, and are less likely to drop out.12
How does living life aligned with core values do all this? By connecting us to others and by motivating us to become our best selves.
The Answer’s in the Question
A remarkable set of interventions have proved that simply asking young people to talk, write, or think about their intrinsic core values can have outsized benefits. These values-affirmation exercises engage students in identifying their core values and then writing about why they’re impor- tant and the roles they play.13 In one study, students in the affirmation intervention were asked to indicate their most important values from a list of core values and then write a brief paragraph about why these values were important to them. Control students indicated their least-important values and why these might be important to someone else. The simple affirmation exercise had astounding results: in just one year, the intervention reduced the academic gap between Black and white students by 40 percent.14 A follow-up study showed that affirmed Black and Latinx students continued to earn higher GPAs than their nonaffirmed peers even two years later!15
Values affirmation also helped women perform better on their course exams and earn higher grades.16 How could such a small intervention have such powerful effects? The combined findings of these experiments suggest that reminding yourself of your core values strengthens your self-worth and confidence and buffers the psychological threats to your academic potential. This gift keeps on giving, because affirmed students perform better on tests, and when they perform better, they feel more affirmed, and on and on it goes. A positive spiral up. Too often, underrepresented students’ core values, such as community and family, are crowded out by achievement, power, and recognition. The affirmation exercise may allow students to recognize and become buoyed by strengths they would otherwise overlook. Other studies have shown that values affirmation not only increases self-worth and academic performance, but also reduces bad behavior, bullying, and aggression.17
Adults also benefit from these reflection exercises. When asked to identify their intrinsic core values and then consider how they would live differently if they lived by these values, they reported decreases in materialistic desires and dramatic increases in self-esteem three months later.18
Values Exercises
Below we have designed some exercises based on the research we shared in the previous section. Feel free to do these activities with your students.
Ranking of Personal Characteristics and Values
Here is a list of characteristics and values.19 Some may be important to you, some may not. Please rank these values and qualities in order of their importance to you, from 1 to 10 (1 = most important, 10 = least important). Use each number only once.
Core Value
Ranking
Being good at art
Creativity
Relationships with family and friends
Government or politics
Independence
Learning and gaining knowledge
Athletic ability
Belonging to a social group (e.g., a community, racial group, or school club)
Music
Career
Spiritual or religious values
Sense of humor
Now choose one of your top three values and write about a personal experience that highlights why this value was important to you and made you feel good about yourself. A friendly reminder: your list should represent what you truly value and which values happily take up time in your brain or life. Not what you think you “should” care about.
Bringing It All Together
Better grades. Improved self-esteem. All from asking a simple question: What do you value? The power of this question has to do with how it shifts our attention. While we all have authentic core values, we can get distracted by our materialistic culture. When we’re asked what we value, this question gives us permission to reconnect to what we truly care about. Instead of instinctively pining away for status and prestige, we can intentionally affirm our authentic core values. When we affirm the values that matter most to us, that endure, and that we’re willing to sacrifice for, something important happens. We are reminded of our value and potential. We receive a fresh infusion of confidence in our ability to pursue important goals in life.
Our work with students largely involves asking them questions rather than providing answers. It doesn’t help to just tell students who they are—what their core values are, what strengths make them their best selves, what skills they want to master, or what impact they want to make. Even if we are spot-on, it does no good if students don’t arrive at these truths for themselves. They will do little to internalize our words and pursue their purpose if they haven’t reflected on these critical questions for themselves. No other human, no matter how well-meaning, can give another the answers to their purpose questions.
