Globethics.net Contribution to Global Values and Virtues 19Values and Virtues matter a lot for people in their various functions
and for human beings in general. Ethics can be understood as set of val-
ues and rules with which groups of people or whole societies can be
guided for leaving peacefully together and knowing how to do the right
things, it guides us in our everyday of our lives and helps us set our own
personal inner compass and what we consider right or wrong. Evidently,
ethics is fundamental for sustainable development and intergenerational
respect. I have had the privilege of experiencing that in many encounters
with people. Globethics.net with its library, interfaith dialogues, inter-
cultural communication, online research groups and international con-
ferences has greatly helped people to strengthen their own knowledge
base and to better define their own identity as to become and stay au-
thentic.
1.4 Values Matter Also for Institutions
For institutions, values matter a great deal also. We often hear the
trilogy ‘Vision, Mission and Values’ as the overarching guidelines. It is
therefore not only important to have those high-hanging orientations but
to also know what are the institutional values perceived as important by
its staff and management in order to realize those visions and Missions.
How many institutions know and apply value assessments? That means
to involve the whole staff and the management in defining those value-
settings over time! Heading the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation (SDC), I asked myself in 1995 what institutional values are
perceived as most important to accomplish the given mission and objec-
tives over the then next ten years. We gathered the 450 employees and
management staff in one big hall and a consultant presented sixty writ-
ten-down values out of which everybody had to choose twenty. In a sec-
ond phase those twenty had to be narrowed down to the final ten to be
selected. In narrowing down these 60 values down to 10 we provided
ourselves a strong common ground of understanding and were able to