Module 6 - Your Values: Understanding your personal report

What are values?

An individual’s values refer to their personal assessment of what is important to them. These values underpin their world view – what is good, beneficial and desirable. Importantly, they are a crucial factor in how we make decisions in our lives as well as how we assess and relate to the people around us.

Alternate terms for values are key drivers, motivations or guiding principles. These capture the notion that values drive our decisions, energy and behaviour. For example, if an individual highly values Security, it means they broadly favour outcomes that give them a sense of certainty. They will tend to choose safer options when presented with a choice. On the other hand if someone values Exploration they are driven by new experiences and novel challenges, so they may avoid the “safe” alternative if they can try something new and exciting instead.

The Values Compass

The Values Compass

9 values form a natural structure which can be summarised with what we call the Values Compass.

Adjacent values on the compass tend to be highly correlated, and opposing values tend to present a tension (for example Security and Exploration are opposite each other and tend to cause conflicts for people that highly value them both).

We can also recognize two natural dimensions to the values. Left to right, we can see some values are more socially oriented and some are more oriented towards the self. Top to bottom, we can see that some values favour change and tend to preserve the status quo. Putting these together we can see 4 quadrants that provide a useful shorthand to summarize the main values in each.

Based on individuals’ survey responses, a personalised Values Compass such as the example above is produced. The orange shape shows where this person’s more important values are, and the arrow indicates the weighted average (we sometimes refer to it as the “north star”). It is longer if your values are broadly aligned in one direction, and will be shorter if your values are balanced around the wheel.

In the example above, the thin black line in the shape of an octagon shows the average of this person’s ratings for the nine values. Where the orange shape is inside the octagon, it means this person’s rating for that particular value was below their average rating. Conversely, where the orange shape is outside the octagon, that value was rated above their average rating. In this instance we can see that this person strongly favours values around their own autonomy and does not care much for stability – the arrow of the compass summarizes this and points strongly in the direction of Autonomy. This person is also high on conflicting values – Personal Success and Universalism, which means they are likely to have to make difficult choices to trade off between their own success and their interest in serving society at large.

When reading your own values compass, it is worth bearing the following in mind:

1. Values are relative: We aim to summarize which values you personally ranked higher or lower, so you cannot compare your answers in absolute terms to other people’s. It is impossible therefore to be “strong on everything” – there will always be some values above and below the octagon.

2. Values are developmental, not static: Instead of personality or typology measures, values continue to change throughout your life as you have new experiences and change your beliefs about what is important. This is essential: we hope that a clear understanding of your values today will make it easier to reflect, learn and develop your values and behaviours moving forward.

Video Explainer