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In a unique research project Jörg Reckhenrich created artworks and explored, with Pleuntje van Meer, the development and meaning of ...
In a unique research project Jörg Reckhenrich created artworks and explored, with Pleuntje van Meer, the development and meaning of values among a group of international leaders.
In forums of debate during the recent economic crisis, the topic of values was of particular interest to business commentators. After the first wave of discussion regarding structural or systemic failures and consequent responsibilities, a second wave focused on the attitudes, values and behaviours of the executives and business managers involved. In the middle of this controversy, the Harvard Business Review published a special edition (June 2009) with three articles on the topic of trust. Some of the conclusions were that leaders who failed their organisations and shareholders had not made their true values transparent and that consumers and markets had trusted some leaders too readily.
Established literature in the fields of psychology and leadership asserts that a clear set of values provides a foundation for leaders in how they operate and in the manner in which their employees maintain ethical norms. Values and ethical norms provide a framework by which leaders can orientate themselves in terms of choices and actions in day-to-day life. Values can change due to changing responsibilities, a significant life event (such as the birth of a child) or other high-impact personal developments. Values are not always explicit or even conscious, but they are an inherent part of our human mindset. They guide us, in our sense of right and wrong, in how we interact with other people and in making decisions. In that sense values have an ethical as well as a practical impact.
Much of the academic debate about values focuses on their impact on a company’s culture, underpinned by empirical studies or statistics showing that companies with strong adaptive cultures based on shared values outperform others. But we explored the meaning of values for individual leaders through a research project titled “Value Creation - Imagine the Unseen”. This project sought to portray the core values of leaders of international organisations through art. Over a period of 2 years, a series of painted portraits was created based on qualitative interviews that explored leaders’ personal values. Each artwork aimed to gain insights into a leader’s personal style, or leadership “signature”.
“What are the most important values that guide you in your daily work?” We asked this question as part of a set of semi-structured interviews with 25 senior executives from a range of industry sectors. The outcomes of these interviews were then synthesised to create a series of 25 artworks as black and white painted portraits. Each artwork showed a leader accompanied by three core personal values, which were integrated as written words into the portrait. These terms were explored during the interview. We asked all the leaders to tell stories that described their most important values, what they mean and how these values guide them in making choices in their daily work. We also asked where these values came from and how they developed over time. After the interview, each leader was asked to choose a background that he or she felt was most appropriate for the painting. All of the parts — the image of the leader, the chosen background and the values revealed in the interview — merged in the portrait as a whole.
While working on the portraits and asking leaders what type of background they felt strongly about, we frequently found that their choice of a certain background mirrored the context in which the leader performed his or her professional role. This context or “stage” represented an important external point of reference in that the stage represented the nature and choice of team members, business structure and the main stakeholders impacting the leader.
What seemed random at the beginning emerged through the series of interviews as important — the background stage as a metaphor of the environment and situation of a leader. For instance, in a portrait of General Johann-Georg Dora, the second highest officer of the German Army, one can see a television set quite close to his head. Dora explained in the interview how his decisions depend on quick information. A running TV, switched to an information channel, delivered a constant flow of worldwide general information. In the painting, it looks as if he has an ear constantly tuned to the world around him. Reflecting on these experiences, we started to see how these backgrounds represented the perspective of the leader on his situation. This perspective represents external points of reference and is therefore an element of a leader’s signature.
Since the signature of a leader is greatly defined by his internal points of reference, one part of the artistic concept was to integrate the stories of the leader into the painting. Values being key in this, we found it important to condense them to the essential ones. Through the stories the leaders told us, we figuratively explored their landscape of values and gained a broader understanding about their personal choices. We saw how they work with values in a practical way, creating meaning for themselves and the organisation. Doing so emphasised that, even if two people have the same values, their meaning might be totally different as they stem from a different character, are embedded in different contexts and have been shaped through different life experience. When we spoke with leaders about the meaning of a specific values set and to what kind of action this led them, it became clear to us how personal values really are.
Instead of searching for a specific set of values or ethical standards, our curiosity was focused on finding the meaning each value had for an individual. We found that this shifted the conversations more deeply into drivers and motivations and also brought about some direct feedback on how values play an important role in decision making. As Fritz Simon, co-founder of the Management Centre of University Witten/Herdecke, offered in one of the dialogues: “As a decision-making person you have to ask yourself … which values are relevant? At that moment when you have to make the decision, you choose and position the values … appropriate for the situation. You then have to talk to the people and explain this.”
In values-based decision making, leaders set a tone for their organisations and create the appropriate culture in the long term. Further, if one looks at which decision he or she has to make and sets values as criteria for this, the process of decision making becomes more a choice than a reaction. Simon added that, in talking about values, one has to look carefully at which decision he wants to make and how to make it:
At the beginning of the project, we expected overlapping value patterns among the interviewed leaders, given that they come from the same generation and level of responsibilities. However, the range and differences we found was quite broad. Looking deeper, we recognised three parameters on the source of their values and how they were created on a personal level.
At the beginning of the project, we expected overlapping value patterns among the interviewed leaders, given that they come from the same generation and level of responsibilities. However, the range and differences we found was quite broad. Looking deeper, we recognised three parameters on the source of their values and how they were created on a personal level.
All of our encounters with the leaders were very different and showed an enormous variety in how they deal with their work. The way they operate, their signature, is made up of external reference points, linked to the stage that they work on, and internal reference points, the inner guidance they choose to live by.
We suggest that leaders reflect on the framework upon which values are based and recognise that individual values stem from a variety of sources:
A clear set of values provides a foundation for leaders in how they operate and in the manner in which their employees maintain ethical norms.
We figuratively explored their landscape of values and gained a broader understanding about their personal choices. We saw how they work with values in a practical way, creating meaning for themselves and the organisation.
Inherited values are often challenged through watershed events or life experiences and transform to advanced values as solid basis of character.
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