84 Part II: Winning Friends and Influencing People
James worked for a charity helping to organise an education programme in
Africa. He had a young family and loved his work. Although he was as poor as a
church mouse, the charity took care of all his day-to-day living needs. His values
hierarchy was satisfied by his work and looked something like the following:
- Happiness
- Enriching lives
- Being with my family
- Freedom
- Variety
- Support network
These values were obtained by asking James ‘What’s important to you about
your work?’
Because James’s values were being satisfied he didn’t pay attention (dele-
tion) to any job advertisements that would offer him greater monetary
reward, thinking they’d detract from the other aspects of his work that he
valued. He admits that he bought into the distortion that all (generalisa-
tion) Western interests in Africa were aimed at exploiting the local people.
Although, later, he did realise that in some cases this view was simply an
excuse by some people not to take responsibility for their own lives.
Values are very contextual, which means that some of your values apply only
in certain areas of your life and that their importance in the hierarchy also
changes depending on which aspect of your life you’re examining. James’s
values were relevant only in the area of his work.
To work out what values are important to you in an area of your life, you have
to stop, get off life’s treadmill, and think! To do that, follow these steps:
- Choose an aspect of your life in which you may not be as successful
as you’d like.
You can use work or you may want to think about relationships, educa-
tion, the environment in which you live, and so on. Chapter 4 has further
suggestions.
- Make a list of what’s important to you in this context.
- Look at the list and think again. Do you need to add something that
may be missing that’s important to you?
- Arrange the list in order of importance.
Ask yourself, for example, whether your second value really is more
important than your third value or whether your fifth value needs to
move up to position two.
