What businesses can learn from a value driven mindset

How is your New Year going? Did you make any resolutions?

Often, in the first few days of January, we see the fresh New Year as an opportunity to improve ourselves, change our behaviours and become a better version of ourselves.

And also, often by the first few days of February, we have forgotten about them and returned to “normal.” According to Forbes, even when we take into account those of us who manage to make them stick for longer, the average New Years Resolution only lasts 3.74 months, with 80% of people not making it past the six month mark. There is even an official “Quit Your New Years Resolution Day” — January 17th in 2025!

There are many reasons for this — including unrealistic goals — quitting a decades long habit isn’t a simple overnight task — and a poor choice of starting point, after all who wants to eat a cold salad and then go for a run in the dark icy depths of winter?

Perhaps one reason why behavioural change is so difficult is due to the mindset we use to approach it.

Goals vs Values

We are often told that to be happy, satisfied and fulfilled we simply need to achieve our goals, and doing so is just a matter of hard work and dedication. While it is absolutely true that achieving our goals will provide us with a brief moment of pleasure and satisfaction in recognition of a job well done, and efforts rewarded…what then? Well, we then need to find the next goal, the next promotion, a bigger house, a better car etc racing ever onwards to the thing we think will finally make us happy, because we have conditioned ourselves to believe that the achievement of the goal is what makes us happy — but along the way we miss out, we may chase goals that don’t really mean much to us, and we are not well equipped to deal with setbacks.

Dr Russ Harris, author of the Happiness Trap gives the following example. Imagine we have two children in the back of the car, on the way to Disneyland. One of them is goal focused — he really wants to get there, all his attention is on getting to Disneyland, rushing everyone into the car, and constantly asking “are we there yet, are we there yet?” the whole journey consumed with his excitement, becoming frustration at not already being there.

The second child however is not so goal driven — instead she is values driven, and so is in touch with her values of curiosity, adventure and having fun, so she is spending her time looking out the window, noticing what is going on, playing games and generally having a much more relaxed time, with the satisfaction of having lived her values along the way — all while still arriving at Disneyland at the same time as the goal driven child.

How can the values mindset benefit me?

Lets think about one of the most common New Years Resolutions — to lose weight — the most popular goal found by go.compare — chosen by 35% of respondents.

While there are many reasons why someone might choose to lose weight that would be healthy and beneficial, approaching it purely from a goal driven mindset can be very harmful. After all, by choosing to dangerously undereat and over-exercise, you would absolutely hit your weight loss goal, and probably do so quite quickly. However, nobody would suggest that this was healthy, or in any way sustainable and would be at best a miserable way to live and at worst could have very serious health complications.

Consider approaching this from a value-based mindset. A person who values their health and values enjoying their life may very well lose weight as a result of behaviours that support their values — behaviours such as eating well, reducing alcohol intake and taking regular exercise. They may even lose the same amount of weight as the goal driven person, but their ability to maintain it and support their health will be far greater due to the skills and experience they will have gained and put into practice. That will be far more sustainable and healthier than a goal driven, crash diet

Setbacks

As well as change being more effective in the long term, as well as being healthier, easier and more sustainable with a value driven mindset, it also helps us to deal better with setbacks.

Think again about the car ride example. Let’s imagine the car breaks down on the way. The goal driven child will be incredibly upset at this setback, and the bubbling frustration will likely turn to tears or anger as he feels his goal is now thwarted.

The value driven child however, who is driven by her values of curiosity, excitement and adventure will, no doubt, be disappointed that there is this delay, but will be able to find interest in adapting to the new circumstances — perhaps the excitement of being “rescued” by the recovery vehicle, finding curiosity in watching the car being towed etc can serve as a distraction and help them cope with the disappointment and be more resilient.

What businesses can learn from this

We can apply much of this thinking to organisations in terms of strategy. If we were, for example to set a goal of increasing profits by 15%, and tackle it in a purely goal driven way, we could decide that the simplest option is to just reduce headcount. While this may seem an obvious path — it may be shortsighted. The effect on morale, the reduction in quality of service, and the result that this would have on the competitive edge could leave the business at long term risk if clients, and a once loyal but now jaded workforce, decide to go elsewhere.

Goals themselves aren’t the enemy — holding goals as the ONLY benchmark is

It is important to note that goals are not the enemy. They can certainly help support our value driven choices and behaviours. For example, our business values may include promoting the wellbeing of the business, paying employees a fair wage, and ensuring the business model is sustainable. Increasing profits is a goal that absolutely supports those values — but only when the ways to achieve it align. Examples would include improving client relationships to promote more repeat business and greater spend, or reducing stress in the workplace to reduce absence, costly mistakes, and resignations with all the time consuming and expensive process of recruitment that would follow.

There will be times when goals are so simple that considering our values will be an unnecessary complication. For example, if a goal is to send expense receipts to the finance department by COB that day, we don’t need to be spending time questioning whether or not it aligns with our core values. However, when making strategic decisions that will have long and wide-ranging impacts, ensuring we are aligning with, and honouring, our values is beneficial

When we do understand what our values are, we can then consider what goals actually support them, and build them into our strategy accordingly — rather than trying to retro-fit and shoehorn values in, only when they don’t contradict our target driven goals.

‍