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What do values mean and why are we so willing to declare them out loud?

The impression is that values and their declarations surround us everywhere. They are proclaimed in political contexts, they are posted on walls in organisations and companies. In other words, the word is used a lot in everyday life. "A Google search for 'values' throws up 2 560 000 results and immediately directs you to learn about values at work, in the organisation and in the family.
Interestingly, this word and its concept is a phenomenon that has become established in the second half of the 20th century. The word 'value' comes from the verb 'to translate'. To change, to turn one into another. I can turn real estate into money, money into knowledge, knowledge into a profession and a profession into a salary. One kind of tangible or intangible asset is translated into another kind of asset. Obviously, what we consider to be the most important things is what we associate with an asset or with a price. From a philosophical point of view, there is something wrong here. What about things like love, freedom, health, can they also be translated?

Virtues and vocation

In the first half of the last century, people did not use the concept of values in the context in which we use it now. People used to talk about virtues, and when we use the word, it is the category of goodness rather than value that is important. Now no one would argue that the family is a value. But is a bad family also a value? Virtues have been understood as positive traits that lead to goodness. Virtue is a measure to understand, to measure oneself in a certain area.
Professional virtues are intertwined with vocation. Obviously, one is more important in some fields and the other in others. Empathy is important for medical staff, smooth communication for a marketer, autonomy of thought for a scientist. A person may sometimes feel attracted not so much to a particular activity (especially if he has not yet tried it), but rather to the virtues that seem closest to his own nature. This is what is called vocation.
But what if, in organisations too, there were a greater emphasis on this, and instead of declaring result-oriented values, the existential potential, the awareness, the feeling of the employee became more important? Creating an environment in which everyone's abilities and virtues flourish would become the goal of managers? Or is this already happening?

Values and development milestones

Virtues often seem to be closely linked to religions. However, they are common human principles of self-organisation. Good and evil are the long-standing spiritual experience of humanity: for thousands of years people have been accumulating what is good and what is bad. At a time when science, business and the power of the Church are on the rise and diminishing, it is as if it were no longer relevant to talk about spiritual experiences. This introduces the concept of 'values', which no longer has oppositional orientations such as good and evil, and is intended to declare rather than to act.
Research confirms this: around 50% of the values that companies identify are declarative and do not lead to change.

Often, a one-off statement of values does not give a person guidance on what qualities they should develop, nor does it give a clear picture of what is good and what is bad. It is also important whether the CEO of the company will take the lead in values and shape a company culture where values are displayed on the wall.

However, in some companies today, this transformation has already taken place or is taking place. Many leaders and teams are subconsciously seeking new labels and changing the values cultivated by the old economic paradigm into virtues. Reliability, security, innovation, efficiency are being replaced by humanity, empathy, inclination, caring, altruism... In other words, fixed rational values become the guiding principles for life, for enhancing professional potential.

This change is also dictated by the new consumer, who today is concerned not only with the price/quality ratio, but also with the company's philosophy, whether or not he is in favour of it. The conscious consumer has a good sense of what is declarative and only done for the sake of an artificial image and what is genuine and sincere.

We are not proposing to abandon the concept of values. We are proposing to rethink it and, instead of hollow declarations, to create an internal corporate culture that best reflects the potential and vocation of employees. Then we need to find a way to communicate it. But not the other way around.

This article is based on material from the leisure culture club GILU.