[Advice] What Are Your Core Values?

There are values.

There are beliefs.

There are principles.

Values are what we are willing to put our lives, our fortune, and our sacred honors on the line to defend, protect, and advocate for. Values are based typically in a moral or ethical code, or standard of behavior, sometimes enforced by society and culture, but much of the time determined privately by individuals.

Beliefs are what we really think, down deep, past the words that come out of our mouths. Beliefs are a core part of the stories that we tell ourselves about the values that we have. Beliefs are about trust, faith, and the confidence in something (typically values) that will come to reality.

Principles are the combination of values and beliefs. Principles serve as the fundamental truths that are the foundation of a chain of reasoning that leads to a set of manifested behaviors that shape our realities. Principles are bedrock, they are eternal, and they sound like positions when we articulate them.

But they are not positions (which are often about personal (and sometimes public) identity or maintaining “face”) nor are they about interests (which are often flexible, negotiable, situational, and impersonal).

There is little productive talk about values using anything but position-based language, designed to inflame people, rather than unite them. There is even less productive debate about beliefs using anything other than language designed to conjure up images of religion, rather than relationship. In both cases, the use of persuasive, argumentative, anchoring language is designed to separate people from each other (which is easy), rather than to engender deeper introspection (which is hard). And too often in our public language, at work, at school, in social media, and other places, we use the language of principles to talk about positions—or even worse–to justify behavior based in mere interests.

Don’t let people fool you. There’s plenty of hard, emotional work in introspectively determining what your values are, articulating to others what your beliefs are, and in figuring out how both of those are walked out in your lived principles.

But there’s no glamour. There’s low (or no) pay. And there’s often no audience. But it’s when there’s no glamour, pay, or audience to put on a show for, that we discover what really lives at our core.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HIT Piece 4.19.2016

There are people whose viewpoints I disagree with, but their principles are in the right place.

This seems counterintuitive to write, to say, and to act upon, but in reality, it is the only way to proceed in a world, seemingly bent on separation, isolation, and increasingly elevating short-term symbolism over long-term substance.

This also seems counterintuitive if you have connected with other people, collaborated on projects, or move forward with initiatives based in shared positions and common interests. The thing about positions is that they shift, and interests align only temporarily, but principles are forever.

This also makes me careful about with who I align, because the seductive beauty of a temporary positon interests me just about as little as the fleeting joy of shared interests. Principles are enduring and deep. Which means, that by the time I’ve discovered what your principles are, we already know that the other two areas—positions and interests—will align as well.

I told someone the other day, I am in a search for a moral man, or woman.

I’m actually in a search, not only for a moral woman, or man, but also a collaborator with whom my principles align.

It’s ok.

I’ve got a few years left yet.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Separating People From Positions

Too many times, well-meaning people cannot emotionally separate the personage of the other party in conflict from that party’s positions.

To do this successfully requires an understanding of (and a caring about) the difference between principles and interests.

Principles are based in values, traditions, and narratives that give meaning to each party in a conflict.
Principles are typically non-negotiable and—when it comes right down to it—parties in conflict view their principles (when they think about them at all) as their “Alamos.” In essence where they land emotionally, psychologically and narratively in a conflict as a last resort.
Principles do not change, they are “baked in.” Principles go to the core of who a person is, and why they value what they value.

Interests are none of these things.

Interests are negotiable, ever shifting, mercurial in their manifestations and outcomes and temporary at best. Interests may have a high negotiating price, but they are negotiable. Interests can unite disparate parties around the pursuit of a common goal, but this unity may sometimes come off as cynical to others, based on avoidance and accommodation of other conflicts, and ultimately damaging to both parties.

In current society and culture in the Western world, there is a lot of confusion around principles and interests. Many individuals and organizations confuse their interests for their principles by using the language of principles while actually expressing an interest. What follows from such confusion is social shaming, public bullying, and even emotional, legal and cultural efforts to engage in destruction of the character of the other party in conflict.

This is part of the reason why many social media based movements fizzle and die: It’s easy to dump a bucket of water on your head to support a cause (interest), but it’s hard to go to a place where people who have different principles from yours gather and actually get to know them as people (principle).

Conflicts in the culture, the workplace, schools and churches grow ever more violent, corrosive and detrimental to all parties as the line between principles and interests becomes more and more confused.

What’s the way out? Well there are three steps, each harder than the last:

Decide what you believe. In a conflict scenario, take some time and examine your own motives, interests and your deeper principles. This seems easy, but much like empathy, active listening, anger management and many other areas of conflict, if you’re choosing not to do it, then it won’t be easy. It will be hard.
Separate people from positions. Positions are always based in interests. Principles are always based in character. Hate the sin, but love the sinner. Easy sounding, but hard to do for each party in a conflict, no matter what the root cause.
Unite with the other party on principles. This is the hardest thing to do, because it requires leaving the comfort zones of separation, demonization, bullying and “othering” and requires each party to go and see “how the other half lives.” By the way, if you think that you know how the other party thinks, feels, and what their principles are because of a few examples of behavior in the past (or present), you really don’t.

When we separate people from positions, they transform, from the image that we have of them in our heads to the reality that they are in the world. We get an opportunity to preserve their autonomy, freedom and integrity. And, we don’t take actions to escalate conflicts, pushing the other party toward their personal conflict “Alamos.”

And we avoid pushing ourselves there as well.

-Peace Be With You All-