Objective:
The objective of this session is to look at how personal values and experiences can help shape both how social enterprise, and more broadly, enterprise education is taught at universities. The session is designed so that it does not alienate students who perhaps do not think social enterprise is for them.
Overview:
The session explores what values are and asks students to consider the relationship between their values and their life experiences. Students are guided through interactive exercises to help them uncover their personal values and learn how understanding their personal values can be used to guide their behaviours and decisions.
Students are also asked to reflect on what types of social enterprise or business they admire based on their own core values.
Activity:
Introduction
- Check in - name, pronoun, course/ college, how you’re feeling or what drew you to the project?
- Discussion: ‘Rules of Play’ Students encouraged to discuss concerns about working together as a group and collectively come up with a group agreement.
- Introduction: What are Values?
Where do we get our values from? We can get our values from the environment, culture and people we surround ourselves with.
Values act as a guidance on how you wish to live your life, derived from life experiences/family/friends. Values make up your wider belief system and govern our behaviour and our purpose.
General Group Discussion
- How have your values been shaped by your personal experiences?
- What has influenced your values? For instance: Participation in community affairs, family business, grassroots initiatives, collective action.
- What is the relationship between your values and your drivers for social change? What is this influenced by?
- What do we mean by shared values and can you give examples of companies that align to your own value system?
Value Mining Work - Preamble
Do you know your own values? It acts as an internal GPS system, directing you in life, influencing who you meet and places you go to.
You want to be aligned to where you want to go. Knowing your values is core to where you want to go next in the world.
When we talk about something very important to us or a decision we have made that made a positive difference it unearths our values, and it is easy for others to identify possible values for us from what is shared. Your decisions are led by your values, and good decisions will be heavily aligned with your values. Likewise, your behaviours, which create an experience and the reactions to it are also driven by values, and the best ones again will be aligned with your strongest values.
The following exercises are designed to unearth values.
Activity 1: Defining your Values through Peak Experience
- Break-out rooms – students interview each other in pairs in order to define their top 5 values.
- Participants are asked to self-reflect on one of their most positive/best experiences or one the best decisions they have made in their life.
- Students are asked to volunteer to share their experience.
- The volunteer briefly talks through, and the rest of the participants are asked to hypothesise the volunteer’s values based on their experience and recollection of it projecting words and values based on the story.
- The exercise is then repeated using other volunteers
- The whole group is asked to reflect on their own response and their values and write them down.
Activity 2: Defining Personal Values through Interview
A sample value mining interview is demonstrated between staff.
The interviewer asks a series of quick fire questions to define what is important to the interviewee. Whilst the interviewee is answering the group identify the values that are being unearthed. The group is just hypothesising based on the responses and the interviewee can later accept or reject the values.
- Sample questions
- Where would you live if money wasn’t an issue?
- When do you feel most like yourself?
- What has inspired/pushed you to take a stand?
- What makes you angry?
- What’s your favourite film / book?
- What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
- What would you do on your dream day off?
- Who are your role models / who inspires you?
The list of potential values are then presented to the interviewee for review
Next students are put into pairs for 5 minutes to interview each other and present each other with a list of values.
Activity 3: Defining and Honouring your Values out of 10
- After the two exercises students are asked to define a list of their 5 strongest values.
- They are then asked to rate on a scale of 1-10 how much they are currently honouring them in their daily life
Reflection: To live a fulfilled life we should be living by our values. So ask yourself, are you living by them? What steps did you take today to honour those values?
Activity 4: Understanding the Connection between Values and Business – Group Discussion
- Which company least represents your values and why?
- Referring to your top 5 values – which company best represents them and why?
- Which companies' values have pivoted over time and what has the impact been from this decision?
Building on previous exercises students are asked to consider how values can be identified in a business context and what steps companies take to honour their values. Students also discuss the impact a company's values have on their perception and relationship with them. This includes both companies they admire and those which conflict with their own values system. This is particularly important for social enterprises whose values are integral to their philosophy. We expand on these ideas in the second session entitled ‘What is Social Enterprise?’
Checking Out
What are your key takeaways from today's session?
Skill Development: (short – focus on reflection; review; feedback; learning)
Learner Outcomes
- Uncover students' core values and what has influenced the development of these over time by defining a top 5 through shared conversations about life experiences.
- Recognise the role values play in carrying out personal and professional visions; illustrate individuals' current level of alignment by scaling their top 5 values (1-10).
- Evaluate how values can guide individuals' personal growth and development; utilise lists, maps and notes to consider ways to mobilise this information to make informed, aligned life decisions.
- Explore what being in and out of alignment (with values) can do to a business or enterprise’s trajectory. Consider steps a business/enterprise can take to honour their values and what difference this can make with reference to real life examples.
Resources:
- Post-its or similar sticky pads
- Pens
References:
- Key authors
- Books
- Links
- Web -sites