A great place to start when establishing core values that stick and resonate is the work of Abraham Maslow.You’re probably familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, but did you know that Maslow spent his final years diving deep into what feeds the human soul? He called these values that resonate deep within us Being Values or B-Values. He never got to finish a definitive list, but he identified some helpful starting places:
Being-Values:
WHOLENESS
unity; integration; tendency to oneness; interconnectedness; simplicity; organization; structure; dichotomy-transcendence; order
PERFECTION
necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability; justice; completeness; “doughtiness”
COMPLETION
ending; finality; justice; “it’s finished”; fulfillment; finish and telos; destiny; fate
JUSTICE
fairness; orderliness; lawfulness; “oughtness.”
ALIVENESS
process; non-deadness; spontaneity; self-regulation; full-functioning
RICHNESS
differentiation, complexity; intricacy
SIMPLICITY
honesty; nakedness; essentiality; abstract, essential, skeletal structure
BEAUTY
rightness; form; aliveness; simplicity; richness; wholeness; perfection; completion; uniqueness; honesty
GOODNESS
rightness; desirability; “oughtness”; justice; benevolence; honesty
UNIQUENESS
idiosyncrasy; individuality; non-comparability; novelty
EFFORTLESSNESS
ease; lack of strain, striving or difficulty; grace; perfect, beautiful functioning
PLAYFULNESS
fun; joy; amusement; gaiety; humor; exuberance; effortlessness
TRUTH
honesty; reality; nakedness; simplicity; richness; “oughtness”; beauty; pure, clean and unadulterated; completeness; essentiality
SELF-SUFFICIENCY
autonomy; independence; not-needing-other-than-itself-in-order-to-be-itself; self-determining; environment-transcendence; separateness; living by its laws
Which values resonate most with you? Your organization?