Value Shifts - Influencing Every Decision

Our basic beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours are products of our times and location in the world. The assumptions, rules and paradigms that guide each of us were inherited from parents, families and communities rooted in their religions, work ethics, economies, geography and cultural traditions. Today's senior leaders are the products of parents who learned their values in a depression environment, of major wars, of the industrial era, of the protestant work ethic and the post-war economic boon ... not to mention Dr. Spock.

As our realities change, our values evolve to accommodate and tune in. Each new generation finds itself rejecting beliefs/behaviours that do not seem to fit anymore. Many are becoming aware that the morals and ethics of the industrial society may have been a temporary blip in history, and that we may be returning to more basic, traditional values. Globablization, immigration and the information age together expose us to other ways of viewing the world we share. The western world is engaged in a major rethink of its values and beliefs.

The major shifts are summarized in the table below:

Shifting FROM	Moving TOWARDS
sacrifice of self independence consumerism local anthropocentrism judgmental	celebration of self interdependence quality of life global environmental stewardship perceptive

Every decision maker will be dealing with individuals, target markets and debates that reflect both sides of each transition; we are not all at the same point on the continuum of change. The most valuable leaders will be those who have learned to understand the range of fundamental beliefs that underscore each position taken. The enlightened leader will constantly be encouraging shifts to the right hand column - simply because they hold a promise for the future that the left hand column does not.

We are indepted to many authors for the insights summarized in the table, particularly:

• Alfred Berhhart - Vitality, Community, Creativity
• George Emery and Eric Twist - Towards a Social Ecology
• Shervert Frazier - Psychotrends
• Willis Harman - Global Mind Change
• Reuben Nelson - Canoeing in Changing Waters
• Joseph Plummer - Changing Values
• I.H. Wilson - Imagining Future Value Systems

The actual words used by these leading thinkers to describe each of the transitions are listed below:

From Sacrifice of Self towards Celebration of Self

• self-denial ethic to self-fulfilment ethic
• self-control to self-expression
• outer-oriented, external local of control to inner-oriented, internal local of control

From Independence towards Interdependence

• rights to rights/responsibilities
• egotistic domination/submission to synergistic consensus/comprommise
• power/competition to cooperation/collaboration
• rugged individualism to enlightened self-interest
• isolated/specialized to networked/integrated/multi-disciplinary
• authoritative/controlling to collaborative/empowering
• individual self-interest to citizenship/community
• isolationist/protectionist to systemic/holistic
• intolerance to inclusion/diversity/pluralism
• separate values to shared values
• generationalism/current generation first to intergenerational justice

From Consumerism towards Quality of Life

• identity/status based on material possessions to identity/status based on well-being, contribution, and psycho-spiritual attainment
• acceptance of planned obsolescence to insistence on durability
• big is better to small is beautiful
• material growth to material sufficiency
• conspicuous consumption to voluntary simplicity
• profit to permanence

From Local towards Global

• ethno-centrism to global citizenships/inclusion/respect
• multiple standards of human rights and freedoms to universal standards
• tolerance of global inequities and the malaise of others to ownership of global malaise/global justice
• isolated/protected national economies to integrated trading blocks and global economies
• 3rd world as frontier to strategic alliances with 3rd world
• geographic communities to international communities of interest

From Anthropocentrism towards Environmental Stewardship

• exemptionalism - man exempt from laws of nature to ecological perspectives/mankind within nature
• environment a free commodity - costs externalized/ignored to environmental costs internalized and assumed
• consumption of the commons to protection of the commons
• unqualified growth to acceptance of limits of growth
• segmented pieces to rational ecologies
• endless harvest/short term to sustainable/long term
• lifeboat ethic to spaceship earth ethic

From Judgmental towards Perceptive

• thinking narrowly and small to thinking broadly and big
• moral absolutes, either/or to situation ethics, mulitple options
• regulations/permissions and fixed/rigid to empowerment within vision