93 World cup of values

This activity is designed to help you uncover your values hierarchy, but could just as easily be applied to your profession.

Activity

1. Firstly, think of the person who knows you best as a physiotherapist. Perhaps a friend of a close colleague?
2. Now make a list of eight words they might use to describe you in your work. What would they say are your particular strengths, values and beliefs as a professional (there’s no need to be bashful or modest here, after all it’s their words not yours)?
3. Randomly number this list. This is important for what follows. For instance from top to bottom you might number your list 3, 8, 6, 1, 4, 5, 7, 2, but any random order will do.
4. Now open this pdf template and follow the instruction on the sheet before coming back to read the analysis.

Analysis (don’t read this until you’ve completed the above template)

What you have created here is called a hierarchy of values.
By asking you to speak through the mind of the person who knows you best the hope is that you’ve been able to bypass your ego and natural humility and get closer to the truth of who you are as a professional.
So these words are really about values that you hold most dear. And the one that won the World Cup is likely to be really important to you.

Now, turn the sheet around so that the template looks like a pyramid. This is the hierarchy.

Now think about the choices you made. By gaming this activity you were artificially forced to choose, so ask yourself why you decided one word meant more to you than another?

There are many ways to use this values hierarchy, but here are two:

1. It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about religion or politics at a party, because you’re likely to offend someone. In this case the things at the top of a person’s values hierarchy are just as important as religion and politics. We’re often happy to chat about things at the bottom of our hierarchies: sport, the weather, travel plans, and so on. But as you move closer to the top you’re getting into complex emotional territory. And if you upset someone it’s likely to be because you challenged them on something at, or close to, the top of their values hierarchy. Think of the times you’ve been upset or angry at work. How often is it because someone trod on something important to you? Oddly, the same can be true of a profession. There are things at the top of physiotherapy’s values hierarchy that we protect with a lot more passion than other things. So, if you were going to repeat this activity using the profession, not yourself, as the exemplar, what would physiotherapy’s values hierarchy say?
2. The second way to think about this is more depressing but no less important. We know that people in healthcare do bad things: medical misadventure, fraud, abuse of power, bullying, and so on. They do bad things when they betray their values. So, what would it take for you to betray those things that you put at the top of your hierarchy? We know it happens; sometimes even to the best people, so it’s no good saying “this will never happen to me”. Perhaps look back here at the times when you’ve done things that are less than honourable at work. What did it take for you to betray your values and how can you guard against it ever happening again?