Values

Understanding values is very important when we what any sort of system change. In this session we are going to look at what values are and how they work – not in a theoretical sense but how they work in activism, and how they can work in achieving systemic change. Then we will look at wider society and the Values within community and what implications they might have for us as activists.

By themselves values are not sufficient to achieve change but they are an important part of strategising for change.

In doing this it is important to look within ourselves to figure out what inspires us, what’s important to us and why, rather than looking at “who inspires us”. It can be a struggle to identify our own values or what inspires us because we are not always very “conscious”.

“Values are strongly in our hearts but sometimes they are not always in our heads”.
“Most of the time, what we do not want drives us to get what we want, and sometimes what we want gives us direction, anger will drive us to do something, but values will tell us what we want to do”.

Feedback from SFC Group – 2022

Group Values Include:

Inclusion, Independence, Courage, Having A Voice, Interdependence, Education, Rights, Choice, Equality, Dignity, Respect, The Collective, Helping Others

Pointers: Where we have shared values, we can work together, because these are motivating, because they inspire us. Values come from our lived experiences, and they can change and develop as we grow and change.

Personal Values – are deeply held ideals about what we think is important, they are key motivators in how we live our lives. Our values shape our attitudes, and guide our behaviours, actions and choices and operate as a system rather than as distinct entities – we hold many values.
Our values come from all sorts of places – environment, family, lived experiences, education, customs and traditions, peers, work, people who influenced us, age, opportunities, media, laws, and policies.

How Values Work – Values Research:
We all hold the same values – 56 values universally held across different cultures and societies. Where we differ is in the values we prioritise; the values we rank most important to us personally.

“Values are like muscles, the more they are engaged the stronger they become”

Why are we Interested in Values as Activists?

• Values shape everything we do as individuals: both at conscious and subconscious levels
• Values shape what organisations do and how they do it – they can be stated – explicit, or implied or implicit
• Values in society secure basic needs, shape interpersonal relationships, and establish behaviour for group survival – dominant dispositions
• Values are central to the systems that can bring forward equality or hold it back.

Pointers

• As individuals we can internalise other people ideas and other people’s perspectives. And then another set of values may be engaged. We can begin to prioritise different values to the ones we originally prioritised and that can make us behave in different ways
• Our values can shift, and we can lose our dreams, our ideals may shift and change and this may effect of motivation. Your values can be still there but we don’t prioritise them in the same way because we are in another space that keeps us engaging in other values.

Looking at some activist organisations that receives a lot of funding, different pressures come, different values begin to get prioritised – this has been tracked and analysed.

How can I be loyal to my values and learn to see other people’s values?

• Respect people – all of us want this, but others may prioritise different values and, understanding values helps us to be less dogmatic
• Staying true to your values – this applies to people as well as organisations – a gap can open up between the values we think we hold and the values that are actually motivating our decisions and actions. This can happen because we are not conscious of our values.

“The more conscious we are of the values that motivate us the less likely we are to find ourselves doing something against our beliefs or ideals”

Where would I look for the values of an organisation and why?

• When you go into an organisation you get a feel for their values straight away – its practice related – how we are greeted, what we see on the walls, what the space looks like – you get a feel early on for the culture of the place
• Look for references from a third party, independent reports give a balanced view of the service/organisation – language used can speak volumes about an organisation’s values
• What an organisation does, what are their activities? Not only the way they do it in terms of policies but how they do it in terms of action/s
• In practice – ask staff – what’s it like to work here? What is the culture of the organisation? Awareness of how happy the people are who are working in the area, can be gauged through just saying hello, through conversing
• Customers/ members / service users – ask about social / medical model? – tells us about the way they work and their priorities.

Relationships? Respect? Listening? Dignity?
An organisations values will become evident when we look at the above questions. And we want organisations to be concerned with equality, to give some priority to equality goals.

Q: What values would you look for to be reassured that an organisation cares about equality?
Equal pay, promotion, socially inclusive, diversity – gender, culture, recruit disabled people equally, day to day values – respect and language around it.

If respect or dignity is not one of the values, then it is unlikely that organisation will be concerned with equality or rights.

Some people don’t know or understand what equality looks like…or people may have different ideas about what equality and respect looks like… Therefore we want the organisation to not only say what respect is (one of our core values) but also to say what they mean by it – we can then agree or disagree but at least we know what they mean and we can check if it is:

• Coming through HR
• Coming through in customer experiences
• Using the social or medical model way of thinking and working?

If it is real then everybody gets to contribute, to suggest changes – inclusion, empowerment.

Pointers:
We can look at what we want the organisation to do, this can be done by looking at the culture of the organisation. This means looking at their policies, actions, and plans. What is important here is understanding what is driving these, as an activism group wanting respect, empathy, empowerment, inclusion, freedom of speech, fairness, air opinions without consequence.

Q: Values drive relationships but what values drive outcomes?
Inclusion, profit sharing – everyone feeling equal in the organisation, social justice, co-operatives – redistribution of wealth, low turnover of staff.

An organisation will have four or five strong values – but they could be doing other things to hide not so good practices.

Common Core Values
Human Rights – Dignity (respect, empathy), Autonomy (choice, self-determination, independence), Inclusion (accommodating diversity), Social Justice (equal distribution of resources), Democracy (empowerment, freedom of speech) – Equality

These are the values we want to see guiding the purpose and strategies of an organisation.

Values Within Organisations:

• Values guide the purpose and strategy of organisations
• A set of values will predominate within any organisation – shapes organisational:
  • objectives and priorities – what gets done
  • policy and procedure – how it gets done
  • staff behaviours and relationships – practice,
    culture.

Think about the organisations that we want to influence, we want to change what they do, or how they do it, we would like them to relate better to us.

Pointers:
There are different ways of creating change – we can take cases against them, we can protest, we can ask to see the manager, but we can also look at their values, and think about how we can influence and shape their values for them to give us what we want?

An organisation’s values come out in their mission, their vision, their process and practices, their strategy.

Values as an Organisational Driver
Behind every outcome or output of an organisation…

• There is a body of practice or a pattern of behaviour…
• Based on the procedures or systems of an organisation…
• Rooted in the values held by that organisation.

Organisational Values

• Explicit and Implicit (organisations need to label and define values)
• Draw from – personal values of staf
  • founding values of the organisation
  • espoused values of the leadership
  • imposed values from external agents
• Potential for disconnect between espoused and actual core values.

Pointers:
Values that get engaged are the values that get prioritised, external pressures can shift the priorities of an organisation – if an organisation is under pressure to survive, its values will shift.

As a result, especially where values are not explicit you can get a values gap, if we don’t have systems to engage the values on an ongoing basis, they will get de-prioritised.

The Values Gap

• Absence of systems to engage values
• Values assumed
• Funder and stakeholder demands or funding reductions

Values Led Organisations Are:
Explicit – in naming, defining, and communicating their values.
Coherent – in expressing core values across all areas and functions of the organisation.
Consistent – in striving to apply their values at all times and in all contexts.

How Do We Live the Values of Our Organisation

• By concretising our values – (name and define values)
• By developing organisational systems and processes to communicate, engage, and prioritise our values – (make sure we keep hearing about them)
• By engaging our values across all our functions and with all of our stakeholders
• By crafting and telling stories of change that engage our audiences with our values.

Discussion
Where there is a value gap it gives us an opportunity to challenge organisations, for example an organisation that says it has inclusive values yet is not wheelchair accessible??.

Cognitive dissonance – when there is a gap between what you feel and what you do, when we feel like we can’t challenge someone, it’s hard to stand up for your values.

Gaps between values and actions – figure out ways to demand accountability. We need to look at what our expectations are for ourselves and for others. Use our commonality to look at our motivations and our right to live like everybody else. We see it written everywhere but the words don’t reflect what is actually happening and the only people who can make a difference is us.

Wider Society and the Values in Community and What Implications they Might have for an Activist

There is a package of 56 values that we ALL hold.

Q. If we lived in a society where there was equality what do you think would be the dominant values? The most important? engaged? talked about? visible? Feedback below

Map of Values – diagram 1 – Shalom Schwartz

Social Justice, Equality, Freedom, Broadmindedness, Moderate, Sense of belonging, True Friendship, Ambitious, Choosing own goals, Creativity, Curious, Meaning in life, Responsible, Self-Respect

The values as seen above are not just randomly placed. They are carefully mapped to explain how each value/s are connected to each other (created by Shalom Schwartz, prominent theoretician in relation to values).
The more values relate to each other or the goal they motivate us towards, the closer together they are on the map. Example: Inner Harmony is close to Social Justice because they motivate us towards a goal that is quite similar, Social Justice is far away from Wealth because they motivate us towards different goals.
Most of the goals we named above (in bold text) are in the top right of the map, with some in top left.

The Schwartz Circumplex

See – www.researchgate.net – Schwartz Values Circumplex – diagram 2

Schwartz’s 56 values are broken down into 4 subgroups – see above – Openness to Change, Self – Enhancement, Conservation, and Self-Transcendence. These are further broken down into smaller sub-groups.

Openness to Change is concerned with self-direction, creativity, freedom. This is also about autonomy, creative flow, stimulation, interest in the world around us, feel excited about new experiences. A belief in the ability to take on challenges that enable us to work with passion towards achieving our goals. It is about hedonism (pleasure-seeking, and appeal to others), and includes a belief in oneself to take on challenge’s.

Self – Enhancement is concerned with achievement, success, ambition. It is about accomplishment, stimulation and feeling proud. It is also about power – having authority, having wealth. Having the ability to achieve, getting what you want – can include elements such as having formal authority, having control of resources and having charisma. Power can be like a resource itself when it can be built up and then depleted as it is used.

Conservation values are concerned with security – feeling safe from the dangers in life – having power allows us to increase our security. It also provides us with a base on which we can seek to satisfy other needs without having to constantly be alert. Conformity is also part of this group, this is when we follow rules, we trust in them, we gain a comfortable sense of feeling secure, but we are alert to anyone that does not fit in to the rules. Conformity also can be found in the desire to uphold traditions. This can be seen in rituals that can be found in social interactions, religious services and so on. Respect for social rules and others in our social groups, sustaining and maintaining the status quo.

Self-Transcendence is concerned with universalism and benevolence. Benevolence involves being kind and fair to others, forgiveness and an assurance of being looked after. Concerns of welfare, and the interests of others are also important here – these values are in alignment with social justice and equality, which motivates a more equal society. These are completely opposite to Self Enhancement Values (opposite to Self-Transcendence Values, if you want a more equal society, you do not need values of self enhancement – see – www.changingminds.org – The need for: Safety & www.scholarworks.gvsu.edu – An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values.

Q. What are the Dominant Values in Irish Society?

Feedback:

• Power
• Ambition – keeping up with the neighbours
• Wealth

Q. What Drives / Engages Values in Society?

Feedback:

• Media (a key engager of values – individual success, difference between public and private media)
• Government – politicians
• The Church – they were a dominant force but not so anymore – a big gap opened between the values it promoted and the values that they practiced – these were exposed in some of the scandals over the years. Where values gaps open up between what people say and what they do, suspicion grows…
• A sense of shame and anxiety drives values of conservation – a sense of needing to keep things as they are when we feel shame and/or anxious we retreat into protecting ourselves – we tend to not be concerned about others, even if they are experiencing the same things.

Pointers:
As activists we are always seeking change for a more equal society, but we live in a society that’s prioritising values that are directly opposed to the values we need to see engaged in society.

This is part of our battle for change – the challenge is to change policy, and institutional practise’s. Part of this is also about challenging society and its culture, when they prioritise power, success, ambition, wealth, and individualism, equality and social justice is forgotten about.

The values that get engaged are the values that are prioritised, and if all the places we get our messages from: the media, social media (focus on celebrity, power, individual status), politicians, the education system, the advertising system – prioritising values of power, success, ambition, individualism, how do we fight that battle?

Covid changed culture for a time – for a short period everyone was talking about community, about care (in the good sense), about equality values, it was powerful and was seen across the media – this was an instance of change – and “moments of change are moments when values can be reprioritised”.

Pointers:
Look at the GAA – one of the largest organisations in this country is the GAA – very male dominant, and it has a lot of wealth. They have such a strong culture, a strong bureaucracy from club, to county, to the national board, it’s difficult to get anything changed. Very few women or disabled people belong to it. It is an organisation with huge influence – it promotes competition and winning – it promotes values in the ‘bottom left-hand corner’ (Schwartz’s Map of Values).

The GAA, and sport generally, tends to have opposite values on the map – competitive and community side.

The power of sporting organisations rests in wealth and status and they use their power to influence culture.

Look at the influence of the media, of advertising, of politicians (in terms of public debate), of the educational system (particularly from second level up), on our culture, in terms of the dominant values they engage with.

Consider the dominant values that get engaged in public debate, track it just for one day, and observe how many times we see values of wealth, success, power, ambition, individual success, individual status. It is very significant, and these are the values that maintain inequality, they are not the values that challenge.

Organisations have an influence on society, on culture. The influential ones, in terms of the messages we receive, are the media, political debate, and advertising. The values they engage are predominantly values of self-interest and that is important in a context where culture is dominated by values of self-interest – difficult to move an equality agenda effectively. Therefore, we need to be concerned with shifting the culture. If we want to see a more Equal Society, we need to see Self Transcendence Values prioritised in society. Openness to Change is important too.

We need to engage these values, and talk about them on an ongoing basis, the more we engage them the stronger they get, we need to get into public debate, engaging those values and we can help to shift that culture.

Bleed-over effect:
We must engage the values of Equality and Social Justice – Universalism and also engage with the values near the top right of diagram 1) – creativity, autonomy and freedom also points towards the same goal. This is called the bleed over effect; if we engage values in one group, we are also strengthening values in the groups that are nearby because they all share similar motivational goals.

See-Saw effect:
When we engage one set of values, we weaken the values that are oppositional (diagram 2). If we engage values that are concerned with equality, or concern for others, we are weakening the opposite values of Self Enhancement. We cannot engage oppositional values because we cannot hold them at the same time.

The key challenge, in terms of all working to shift culture, is that we as activists within our organisations need to engage those values more frequently.

We need to expose those who would promote self-enhancement values and show that those values are not useful, by engaging Self-Transformational Values, we weaken the Self-Enhancement ones (diagram 2).

Pointers:
It is possible to work for change, it is possible to contest engagement with dominant self-interested values, but we need to do so in ways that are thoughtful in terms of engaging the values that we believe in, not the values we believe others hold.

We need to do it creatively by also engaging values that are linked to the ones that we believe in, that share motivational goals. We need to do it on a scale large enough to make a difference, but this is difficult, because we often do not have the money. But if there was more cooperation between activists and between like-minded organisations, it can be done.

Shaping of Initial Values
Our educational system has a massive influence on personal values – competitiveness/success – these are not beneficial to values of equality.
Bring these values into work, into society, into our economy – values include; competition / success, who we value – winners, success – these hinder the change – those values are oppositional to equality.

Pointers:
At election time – politicians talk about what’s in it for individuals, not what’s in it for “us”, people’s self-interest values are constantly engaged. We need to shift why we do things – it needs the collective.

Anxiety hinders our concern for others, we go into survival mode, it leads us to only take care of ourselves and those close to us.

A Good Example of Collective Activism – Loving, Equal, Fair, Generous, Inclusive – Marriage Equality Campaign – Based on 5 Values

See – www.bond.org.uk – 5 lessons from the Irish marriage equality campaign

A very effective campaign, it mobilised people to vote for equality – it was a “values led” campaign. The campaigners took a risk, they didn’t use self-benefit arguments, they didn’t use facts and figures, they didn’t provoke anxiety. They just used values that included Loving, Equal, Fair, Generous, and Inclusive and it worked. It is rare to use universal values and get an equality outcome. It was a long running campaign, they used values that appealed to everyone – it was a conscious, brave, and strategic decision. They could have said marriage inequality is bad for couples / people / children …etc, that would have been an individualistic approach.

Activism Regarding Homelessness
Dominant message is one of crisis – the crisis laden messaging is accurate, it is a crisis, it is horrific, but crisis breeds anxiety and anxiety does not mobilise us to care for other people.

The messaging needs to make us “care about homelessness” (benevolent values) if government are seriously going to do something about it.

Secondly the huge focus on facts and figures – is a communication issue from a values perspective.

Where the homeless activists are strong is their focus on rights – pro-social values and the fact that change is possible.

Activists Strategy
Activist organisations tend to talk to the powerful, rather than talk to the ‘powerless’- ‘the people’, they seek to engage the powerful to care about their issue, therefore facts and figures become more important than the values. There is competition between the organisations rather than making connections.

They need to be explicit about the values that they want to engage, to ensure that those values will focus on what they want rather than what they don’t want. Also, of importance here is the need to look at values that might resonate with the interesting, caring and fairness values in the “moveable middle” – those that may be convinced to support.

Closing Discussion:
Looking at housing in crisis mode, you can feel overwhelmed, and nothing can be done – “paralysing effect”. This is down to communication. Doom and gloom and crisis make people disengage. Being an activist is about motivating and mobilising – and using our values can make people with similar values come forward.

Appealing to other people’s values, engaging with them, and encouraging people to prioritise values of dignity, fairness, justice, choice, independence, and inclusion is so important.
And the belief in “change is possible” sometimes we focus so much on what we don’t want, change doesn’t seem possible, we rarely get to focus on what we do want.

We are always in the mode of “giving out” – not necessarily a bad thing, because there is an awful lot to give out about, but we do need to find the space to say what we want as well so that we can prove that change is possible.

We know that there is no strength in our current homeless campaigns, each of them does their own thing. They are fragmented.

In terms of how we communicate information, if we can’t communicate in ways that will engage values that are pro-social, pro-concern-for-others, we won’t have strength of people behind us.

When we talk about organisational values, they should work to break the fragmentation and create coordination but actually the competition between organisations is so intense – for funds, media space, political space… it is upsetting to see because that fragmentation is damaging.

Look at communication through a values lens, in terms of what values are being engaged? Are these pro-social values? To what extent is anxiety being deployed, to what extent are facts and figures being deployed? Bring that analysis to it and then decide about it.

Secondly acknowledge there is a power in values led communication in terms of its capacity to mobilise people and to build strength behind an argument and give people agency in terms of being able to show they care about something that we all want (not something we don’t want).