Reference no: EM132190206

This note begins with the assumption that most of us want to find ways to voice and act on our values in the workplace, and to do so effectively. We focus here on situations where we believe that we know what is right and want to do it, but we experience external pressures – from our boss, our colleagues, our customers – to do otherwise. As a result, we are not sure how to raise our concerns. The focus here is not on situations where we are tempted to do something we believe is wrong, for our own personal gain and because we believe we can get away with it. While this is a relevant topic, it is for another day.

Now some might say that what we really want is to be able to feel like we have voiced and acted on our values. And this desire may lead us just as easily – perhaps more easily – to focus our energy on finding ways to rationalize what we say and do such that it appears consistent with our values, as opposed to focusing our energy on finding ways to actually be consistent with our values. Research on self-bias would tend to support this view.

Others might point out that the real problem in the starting assumption is the idea of voicing and acting on our values “effectively.” That is, given the organizational and personal barriers to acting on our values, success in this arena is elusive. Thus even if we don’t succumb to the self-justifying bias noted above, many -- if not most of us -- will abandon attempts to follow our values simply because we don’t believe it is possible to do so.2 We may believe that despite our best efforts and courage, we will not be able to change the offending organizational practice or influence the offending individuals, especially if they are our superiors in the organization and/or if they appear to be in the majority. After reading this explain why values should be given a voice?