Differing Values
A few months back it occurred to me that a couple of my black blazers were not sparking joy.
The blazers were barely worn; apparently they hadn't sparked joy for awhile.
ATTEMPTING TO PASS THEM ON
First, I tried to sell the blazers, taking nice photos and listening them online.
Despite several price reductions, no takers.
Then, I tried to consign the blazers. The woman at the consignment store said, “These will definitely sell.” They didn't the first week, or the second week, or the third week, or ever.
Finally, I tried to give them away to a few different individuals who I thought might be able to use them. Once again, no luck.
Finally, I donated them, in hopes that the blazers might spark joy for someone, so that they don't end up in a landfill somewhere.
VALUE IS NOT ALWAYS EQUAL
Here's the thing I had to accept: while the blazers seemed valuable to me (They're nearly new! They're so nice! They've only been worn a few times! They're high quality!), they weren't valuable to others.
One person's giveaway item was not, in this case, another person's treasure.
We can think about this within our workplace and our teams and our lives as well.
Just because we value something, it doesn't mean that others do.
We might value working in person and be advocating for a return-to-the-office five days per week, but our team members might value flexibility with the desire to work from home 3 days per week and come in for meetings and collaboration on the other two.
We might value after-hours happy hours and team events as a way to bond, but our team members might value being home with their loved ones or pets during that time.
We might value having conversations about politics and policies with colleagues, but our colleagues might prefer to keep those topics separate from their everyday work.
We might value staying in touch with friends via texts and phone calls, but our friends might value their quiet alone time, or unplugged time with kiddos, more highly than virtual communication with friends.
We can also consider this in our personal lives if, for example, we have a different love language than our partner does and we therefore value different actions and behaviors as expressions of love and caring.
It isn't necessary that we all value the same things.
QUESTIONS TO ASK OURSELVES
However, in our work and our lives we might pause to consider: is there a way in which I am projecting my values onto others? What is the impact, if so? And, instead, what could it look like to try to understand what other people value, even if their values are different than my own?
