Richard Barrett, regarded as one of the foremost thinkers on values in the world. He is the Founder of the Barret Values Centre, the Barrett Academy for Advancement of Human Values and the Human Awareness Initiative. He is the author of 14 books. One of his books āWhat my Soul Told meā became the basis of a musical āPunchyā.Ā Working with Values: In conversation with Richard Barrett is our way of brining this deep thinker on values to all of you.
What stays with me from our conversation?
Here are some highlights from our conversation that has stayed with me. Please click on the link below to listen to the entire conversation.
- Our values express our deepest aspirations and feelings. You are taping into the soul level when you are talking about values. Values get to the heart of who you are. What you stand for.
- When people talk about values they are shifting from a transactional conversation to an emotional conversation. They are meeting each other at the soul level. This is why the atmosphere feels different when you create the space for values based conversations.
- Values based conversations foster authenticity and connection. In values based decision making you canāt help but have an open, honest and authentic conversation. They help drop down the masks that are prevalent in fear based environments. Values based conversations help people be themselves. People feel a disequilibrium when they are not able to talk about their values and have frank conversations. Not expressing who you are at the soul level is deeply stressful.
- Cultural Entropy is the degree of dysfunction in a system due to fear based behaviours, beliefs and values. When cultural entropy goes down people feel they can bring their whole selves to work. To have a values alignment and low cultural entropy requires work.
- Leadership, is about being the best version of yourself in a collective context. It is about personal growth. The leaders of the future understand how to care for the needs of the people. The key is caring about your people. From that point of view Organisational transformation is thus linked to personal transformation
- You canāt be authentic without being vulnerable. Vulnerability is a huge strength. It is not a weakness. We can increase our capacity for being vulnerable by asking for personal feedback.
Working With Values Series
At Flyntrok we believe there are many ways to work with values. One that we hold close, is working with values through conversations and stories. We created the Working With Values series to provide a platform where some of the best minds from across the globe can share and build on each otherās perspectives of working with values. This series includes conversations, webinars, short and long AV posts. Thank you for joining me, Stephen Berkely, Director of Global Business at Flyntrok and a values practitioner in this conversation on Working With Values.
