Ethos: the characteristic and animating essence of an organisation or community.

As a chief executive, one of your most important jobs is creating and maintaining a healthy ethos. An organisation with a healthy ethos is a vibrant organisation with a secure identity, one that all its staff understand and value, one that is successfully achieving its goals. If you succeed in building such an ethos your staff will be motivated, happy in their work and eager to put in that extra effort. This will greatly enhance your chances of achieving your mission. The keys to a healthy ethos are:

• Encouraging staff and others to join you in identifying the values of the organisation.
• Encapsulating these values in a mission statement understood and accepted by everyone.
• Working with staff and the community to ensure that the organisation lives up to these values.

BUILDING THE FOUNDATION

Each of the keys to a healthy ethos depends on an understanding of shared values and the role they play in your organisation. But what are values? Why must they be shared? What have they to do with goals, principles and standards? How do they relate to morale and reputation?

To answer these questions it is necessary to understand the nature of values and their importance to us as human beings. In this chapter, therefore, we’ll explore the connections between:

• values, principles and standards
• values, self-respect and our reputations.

In Chapter 2 we return to the role of shared values in organisations and to the mission statement that expresses these values.

Understanding values

Our values (noun) are the qualities that we value (verb). Here is the definition of ‘values’ on which this book is based:

Values are qualities that command respect and that generate:

• principles to guide us in our thinking and our actions;
• standards against which we judge ourselves and others.

And here are some examples:

• happiness
• love
• health
• truth
• virtue
• freedom
• beauty
• wisdom
• success
• honesty
• kindness
• prudence
• self-discipline
• courage
• integrity
• hope
• tenacity
• temperance

There are values of different kinds. There are moral values (virtue), aesthetic values (beauty), intellectual values (wisdom) and social values (freedom). There are also values that seem closely related like love and kindness, truth and honesty. This is because this list includes both values and virtues. About the virtues, more below, for now we can think of them as values.

Commanding our respect

Values command our respect, they are worthy of esteem, we have reasons for valuing these qualities. They are not just qualities for which we have a personal preference. This difference is crucial.

Some of us like the colour red. Even so, we would not be surprised or concerned if a loved one disliked it. Nor would we try to persuade them otherwise.

But there would be something highly disconcerting about someone’s claiming to prefer honesty or kindness. The implication that they wouldn’t be surprised or concerned if someone else said they preferred dishonesty or unkindness, jars badly.

Most of us understand that human happiness and freedom, and so many of the other things that make life worth living, depend on the stability and success of the communities in which we live. And we see that the stability and success of these communities depends on people being honest, kind, trustworthy ...

These qualities command respect because they are necessary conditions for the flourishing of human beings and the relationships and communities on which that flourishing depends.

To the extent that we believed someone who claimed they preferred dishonesty, we would think there was something wrong with them, we would be wary of them, we’d think they couldn’t see why honesty is important. We’d certainly wonder why they were telling us this when it would be in their interests to keep quiet about it.

Honesty and kindness matter to us, in a way that, for example, colours don’t; they command respect, they are not simply qualities for which we have personal preferences.

Generating principles

Values generate principles that guide us in our thoughts and our actions. It is not possible to think that a quality commands respect without thinking that we ought to possess it: to value honesty is to believe that one should be honest.

Because values generate principles they are essentially linked to behaviour. ‘Should’ beliefs are like rules, they guide us in our thoughts and in our actions.

Principles are general rules that apply in every situation. But it is often difficult to know:

• how a rule applies in a particular situation (would that action be dishonest/unkind?)
• what to do in cases of conflict (if telling the truth would hurt, should we lie?)
• how to resist the temptation to disregard such principles.

These difficulties ensure that our values make demands on us, that it is not always easy to live up to them.

Generating standards

Values also generate standards against which we measure ourselves and others. Insofar as we value honesty and believe that we should be honest, we will try to be honest, even when it’s difficult. This doesn’t mean we will be honest, of course, but it does mean that we will try.

And if we are honest (especially when it is difficult) we will deem ourselves successful; if not, we will believe we have failed. Honesty is a standard – an ideal – against which we measure ourselves.

This ensures that values are inextricably linked to our self-respect, another aspect of values that we’ll discuss below.

We also judge others against the standards generated by our values. Insofar as we believe we should be honest, we also believe others should be honest. The principles and standards generated by our values are personal in that we make them our own, they are not personal in virtue of applying only to ourselves.

This property of the principles and standards generated by our values is called the universalisability of values.

VALUES AS GOALS

Values matter to us for one of two reasons:

• they are intrinsically valuable, good in themselves
• they are instrumentally valuable, good for the sake of qualities that are intrinsically valuable.

Intrinsic values

Human beings are unique: they can value things for their own sake rather than simply for the sake of survival and reproduction. We want our lives to have meaning and it is the qualities we believe to be intrinsically valuable – qualities like happiness, love, freedom, success, beauty – that give our lives meaning. On our deathbeds, we will decide whether our lives have been worth living by the extent to which we have acquired, and/or surrounded ourselves with, the qualities that are intrinsically valuable.

To see what you believe to be intrinsically valuable, try this:

Imagine that you are on your death bed, life ebbing away. Reflect on the things that have made your life worthwhile and the things you regret. What does this tell you about the things you value for their own sake?

Someone once said that few of us would regret not having spent more time at the office, or not doing the housework. Yet in the midst of life these things are often given priority. Those who have had a brush with death often claim that it has helped them to sort out their priorities. This is because such experiences bring us face to face with the things we believe to be intrinsically valuable.

The qualities we believe to be intrinsically valuable are our life’s goals.

Instrumental values

The qualities we value instrumentally, as means to the qualities we value intrinsically, are also goals, goals that we must achieve if we are to achieve our overall goals.

There are many layers of instrumental values. Every time we
   ... come to value some quality ...
     ... for the sake of some other quality ...
       ... we will come to value some further quality ...
          ... for the sake of the second quality ...
Values eventually shade off into personal preferences.

Values and virtues

The examples of values on page 18 include both values and virtues (the right hand column lists virtues). Virtues are those qualities possession of which enable us to live up to our values.

If we value truth, in other words, we must value honesty, because honesty (with ourselves and others) is a necessary condition of our discerning and preserving truth.

Our possession of the virtues, on this view, is so essential to our achievement of our life’s goals that they have often been thought of as themselves intrinsically valuable.

We have seen that it is difficult, at one end of the scale, to distinguish our instrumental values from our personal preferences. At the other end of the scale, it is difficult to distinguish our instrumental values from our intrinsic values.

There is a philosophical tradition, going back to Aristotle, according to which there is only one intrinsically valuable quality: happiness. Other philosophers disagree, believing truth, wisdom, virtue, love, freedom and many other things to be intrinsically valuable. To look at what Aristotle meant by happiness, however, shows these views are not really so different.

To get a better understanding of your intrinsic values, try this:

Taking happiness – or any quality you believe to be intrinsically valuable – ask yourself exactly what you mean by it, and what you would have to do and/or be to achieve it.

A ‘spider-chart’ might help. Here is Aristotle’s spider chart for happiness.

Some of the qualities associated with happiness might be considered part of happiness (and so intrinsically valuable), others means to happiness (and so instrumentally valuable).

Getting values wrong

When it comes to personal preferences, anything goes. This is not the case with our values. Importantly, we can get our values wrong.

There are two ways of doing this:

• 1.We can value for its own sake something that it not valuable for its own sake (eg money).
• 2.We can wrongly believe that achieving one thing will enable us to achieve another (eg that acquiring power will bring us love).

In the first case it is our intrinsic values we have wrong, in the second our instrumental values.

CONSTRAINING GOALS

Values are goals. They are also constraints on our pursuit of goals because of the principles and standards that they generate.

As we have seen, it is in the nature of general principles and standards that the way they apply in any particular situation depends on:

• which other rules apply in that situation
• how these different rules interact in that situation.

If you value both love and success, for example, and believe you should put energy into your marriage and your career, you face a conflict of values whenever you find you haven’t enough energy for both. The value you place on love is a constraint on your pursuit of success, and vice versa.

Every such conflict requires us to make a decision, sometimes a very uncomfortable one. It is how we deal with such conflicts over a lifetime that determines whether or not we become the people we want to be.

DETERMINING CHARACTER

Conflicts of values cannot be avoided. And there are no general principles by which they can be resolved: each situation is unique. Sometimes love should come before success, at other times success should come before love. In each situation it is up to us to decide what is right.

We can take advice from others, of course, but even then we must decide whether to take that advice. Each of us is solely responsible for the way in which we live our lives.

The choices we make when values conflict:

• reflect our current character, who we are, because we are solely responsible for them
• form our future character, who we become, because their consequences determine the course of our lives.

Importantly no one decision (or even any small sub-set) accurately reflects our current character or predicts our future character. The person who values love over success will occasionally put success first, and even the most honest person may tell a lie when loyalty is at stake. Anyone who knew these people well would say that, on these occasions, they acted out of character.

It is a person’s consistently putting love over success, loyalty over honesty, or vice versa, that gives us a grip on the sort of person they are. It also enables us to predict how their lives may go. It is the pattern of decisions that matters.

Values and habits

Habits are patterns of decision-making that reflect our values. Assuming that we have our values right in the first place, good habits accurately reflect our values, bad habits do not (although eventually they will as our characters change to match our habits). It takes effort on our part to form good habits, bad habits are far easier to fall into.

When we’re busy, for example, it is easy to fall into the habit of consistently putting work before our relationships, even if we value our relationships at least as much as work. Soon our relationships will suffer. Conversely, important relationships can tempt us into consistently putting work last. Soon our careers will suffer.

If the habits we form are not true reflections of our values, they:

• can give the wrong messages about our current characters
• can prevent our becoming the people we want to be.

People who succeed in harmonising their values with each other are people with integrity. Such people are able successfully to resolve conflicts between their values in such a way that they truly live up to all their values.

Acquiring integrity demands a sustained effort and sound judgment on our part. It requires us to know ourselves and our values, to understand the demands that our values make of us, and to remain vigilant against developing bad habits.

It is here that we find the relation between values and self-respect.

GROUNDING SELF-RESPECT

If we form good habits and succeed, generally speaking, in living up to our values we develop increasing respect for ourselves. This will give us a robust core of confidence that will help to see us through the tribulations of life.

If we form bad habits and fail, generally speaking, to live up to our values, we will feel we’re letting ourselves down. This will strip us of confidence. But the less confidence we have in our ability to live up to our values, the less likely we are to live up to them. A vicious circle can develop.

This, sadly, can turn us into cynics. There are two types of cynic:

• those who deny the real value of love, success, friendship etc,
• those who believe that values like this are really a reflection of power (you’ll love me only if I have power over you).

Cynicism can turn us into bullies, people whose sole aims are to win power over others and avoid others winning power over them. It is difficult to imagine how someone cynical could be truly happy, or how they could be a positive influence in a community or organisation.

Low esteem can also prevent individuals finding happiness, though it is less destructive of others’ happiness.

GROUNDING RESPECT FOR OTHERS

As we saw above, values are universalisable. Anyone who does not share our values, live in accordance with the principles they generate, or match the standards they set, will be found wanting.

This does not mean that everyone must always succeed in living up to these values: none of us can resist all temptation, avoid all error. And there are people whose values reflect the fact that their lives have been unhappy, violent and frightening. Such people have not had the opportunity to learn the right values. This is why, in judging others, we should always exercise compassion and understanding.

But it does mean that anyone who, on a regular basis, fails to measure up to the standards set by our values, forfeits our respect. We will view such people as untrustworthy:

• dishonest (saying one thing and doing another)
• ignorant (unaware of the importance of values)
• weak (aware of the importance of values but unable to resist temptation).

GROUNDING OUR REPUTATIONS

And just as we judge others against our values so we are judged by others. Our values and ability to satisfy the demands they make on us determine our reputations.

If we want to command the respect of others we must:

• subscribe to the right values (those that are truly valuable)
• live up to the standards they generate (at least most of the time).

If we succeed in doing this we will be earning a good reputation. This will invite trust and open doors that might otherwise be closed. A bad reputation will inhibit trust and close these doors.

The consequences of a bad reputation are very far-reaching. So far reaching, in fact, that everyone, no matter what their actual values, has an incentive to claim to share our values, principles and standards, and to appear to live up to them. Even the most dishonest people have reason to claim to be honest, they even have reason to be honest most of the time. This is not only because most of the time it would be of no benefit to them to lie, but also because the best way to acquire a reputation for honesty is to tell the truth most of the time. Without a reputation for honesty it is difficult successfully to deceive anyone other than a complete stranger.

If someone’s actions do not accord with their words, it is always – and rightly – the actions we believe. If, embracing the right values, we find ourselves unable to live up to them, others will be unsure whether the discrepancy between what we do and what we say is the result of our having got into bad habits or because our values are not as they should be. We will be forfeiting their trust.

The values of individuals: a summary

Values are qualities that command our respect, they generate principles that guide us in our thoughts and our actions, and standards against which we measure ourselves and others. This means that values are:

• goals that matter to us, as valuable either in themselves or for the sake of something that is valuable in itself
• constraints on our pursuit of goals requiring us to make decisions about how life should be lived
• determinants of our current and future characters not only reflecting who we are, but determining who we become
• inextricably linked to our self-respect in virtue of setting standards against which we measure success (and failure)
• inextricably linked to the respect of others in virtue of underpinning our reputations.

In the next chapter we shall see that there are organisational equivalents for all these features.

Tim values health and friendship, believing he will achieve the former by regular exercise and a healthy diet, the latter by doing things with his friends. Tim’s friends like going to the pub four or five times a week. Tim always eats and drinks too much at the pub, then he doesn’t sleep well. The following day he is often too tired to exercise. Tim knows his lifestyle is undermining his health, he has started to feel he’ll be letting himself down if he continues.
Tim resolves to suggest to his friends that they do something other than go to the pub. He vows that if they don’t agree he will simply have to exercise will-power or find new friends.	Tim finds that his guilt goes away if he reminds himself of his intention to get healthy just as soon as he can. As soon, that is, as Don’s wedding and Jim’s promotion are out of the way.
Tim’s friends disagree. His resolve intact, Tim enquires about classes at the leisure centre. At first he feels lonely, then he starts to enjoy himself, to feel fitter and to make new friends. His self-esteem starts to rise.	Tim’s friends don’t agree. Tim goes to the pub anyway, where his mates tease him. Embarrassed, he agrees it is silly to worry about health. Years later someone suggests they do something other than go to the pub. Tim joins in the teasing.	Knowing that such events are frequent, Tim books himself into a health club for after the wedding. Ignoring his friends’ teasing he continues to lobby them. Eventually one agrees to join him. Soon the others are also on side.	After the wedding Tim remembers he intended to get fit. Unfortunately, Tom is emigrating and his farewell is next month. Seeing no point in trying to get fit before that, Tim comforts himself with the intention of getting fit afterwards.