Words Can Change Your Brain (15 page)

Now, it may be just a coincidence, but the couple of students who ignored the exercise had greater difficulties with their schoolwork. And when they were later involved in teamwork activities with their classmates, they tended to be less cooperative and more stubborn.

Inner Values on the Internet

Over the past two years, we’ve been able—using Facebook and other social media forums—to get feedback about this exercise from people all over the world: college students, therapists, religious practitioners, divorce attorneys, mediators, teachers, corporate executives. And the feedback is overwhelmingly positive—perhaps because it takes so little time to do. For example, here’s what happened when John, a construction worker from New Zealand, did the “inner values” exercise for ten days:

My initial reaction was, “Not another thing to do!” But then I realized that I hadn’t put much focus on values in the past, even though I’d read about it. Love, service, and family were my three top values, and I started to realize where love was really missing: at work. Normally, I feel a lot of animosity toward my boss, but by the third day of my values experiment, I started feeling kindness toward him. I began to let go of my anger because I saw that he was only doing his job. Then I started feeling gratitude, because he was the one who gave me my job.

Cheri Frootko, a South African film director and script supervisor saw the inner values exercise on YouTube, in a clip from a TEDx talk in Thousand Oaks, California, that Mark gave in 2010 (you can see the TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhCLXEeSDQ). Cheri had just assembled a team to shoot a project in France and decided to show them the video. Each morning, before they began work, they practiced the inner values exercise:

We created a fun routine. We imitated Mark on the video: yawning, breathing deeply, stretching, rolling the shoulders, and shaking our hands. We closed our eyes and asked ourselves what our greatest value was, and then, in a spirit of lightheartedness, we shared our words with each other. The result? Ten people, who a week earlier were total strangers, created a bond of insight and intimacy. And it wouldn’t have happened without this three-minute catalyst. We would have worked well without the exercise—say, on a level of 6—but with our sharing of values, the energy and harmony of the group reached a level of 9. PS: Forgot to mention that when the pressure got intense, we used a specific buzz word on the set—“yawn”! It made everybody relax and lighten up.

Exercises like this are slowly working their way into business and medical communities. At Missouri State University, psychologists found that when a personal values exercise was included in a treatment plan designed to help patients cope with chronic pain, their tolerance toward pain improved.
³
When we get in touch with what is most meaningful in our lives, we are less distracted by the problems that occur throughout the day.

Are We Moving Toward a Values-Based Society?

Inner values used to be a popular topic in the 1950s and 1960s, when books by Viktor Frankl (
Man’s Search for Meaning
) and Abraham Maslow (
Religion, Values, and Peak-Experiences
) were best sellers. But during the past twenty years, values-based research mostly disappeared.

Recently the picture has changed. With the meltdown of the financial institutions that occurred several years ago, magazines like
Bloomberg Businessweek
have been regularly calling for the implementation of corporate and leadership values. And the business world is responding.

Harvard business professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter—considered by many to be one of the most powerful women in the world—recently commented on the importance of directly addressing values in the boardroom:
“
In organizations that I call ‘supercorps’—companies that are innovative, profitable, and responsible—widespread dialogue about the interpretation and application of values enhances accountability, collaboration, and initiative.”
⁴

Our own research supports this. Even though everyone has a unique set of values—running the spectrum from highly idealistic principles like truth, integrity, and growth to highly interpersonal values like love, family, and friendship—when people openly share their values with each other, they come together and express mutual support.

We once had a church auditorium filled with religious believers and disbelievers, liberals and conservatives, millionaires and welfare recipients, and when we guided them through the inner values exercise, and then asked them to share their values aloud, nearly everyone (as far as we could tell) ended up feeling a deep sense of mutual respect for each other. And when the president of the largest atheist association in America told the group that his inner value was to help people find deep peace in their personal and professional lives, everyone in the room applauded.

Kanter finds that the same thing happens in the business world. When people share and discuss their deepest values, it strengthens the motivation of the entire group. Employees’ personal values become integrated with the company’s policy, and this helps guide the ethical choices of the corporation. Discussing business values openly, Kanter argues, eliminates the need to impose impersonal and coercive rules.

In Kanter’s experience, discussions about values also help to decrease interpersonal conflict. Cooperation grows, everyone feels like they are part of the team, and profitability increases for everyone:

The organization becomes a community united by shared purpose, which reinforces teamwork and collaboration. People can be more readily relied on to do the right thing, and to guide their colleagues to do the same, once they buy into and internalize core principles . . . And, as I have seen in leading companies, active consideration of core values and purpose can unlock creative potential.
⁵

That is the power of a single question.

What, Exactly, Is a Value?

We are often asked to define what we mean by “value.” But the beauty of this exercise is that we
don’t
define it. Nor do we give examples. When someone else suggests what values we should consider, the exercise becomes outer directed, not inner directed. If people ponder the question in their own ways, remarkable self-discoveries can be made.

Values are difficult to define or categorize because they can touch on so many dimensions of life. There are moral values, political values, religious values, marital values, organizational values, and aesthetic values. There are practical values and theoretical values, scientific values and philosophical values. There are personal values and interpersonal values, health values and money values. Values can even govern the types of food we eat and the products we buy.
⁶
But if they become too rigid—or turned into “shoulds”—they can generate a myriad of conflicts with others.
⁷

Inner values are shaped by both genetic and environmental influences,
⁸
and they are essential for providing meaning and purpose to life. Without them, we’re more inclined to exhibit antisocial behavior.
⁹
Interestingly, different values activate different structures within the brain,
¹⁰
and it’s even been shown that different areas in the visual cortex are activated in people with different cultural values.
¹¹
They may actually see the world in a fundamentally different way.

Asking the Right Questions

When we were first gathering data to measure the effects of Compassionate Communication, we asked workshop participants the following question: what is your secret desire? The question was inspired by the phenomenal success of the movie and book
The Secret
, and we were curious to see how people would respond. It gave us a goldmine of valuable information.

Before participants were guided through the full Compassionate Communication script, most people responded to the “secret desire” question with materialistic goals: more money, a better job, a nicer house, etc. After practicing the dialogue exercise for forty minutes, people responded very differently. Happiness and contentment were often cited. Financial desires dropped from 34 percent to 14 percent, whereas a yearning for peace increased by 60 percent. Desires for self-love and interpersonal love nearly tripled.

Intrinsic values like these are far more likely to be associated with satisfaction in life and emotional well-being than with wealth.
¹²
That’s why it’s important to ask the right question, in the right way. If you ask people what they want, their answers will often focus on material prosperity. But if you ask them what makes them happy, money is rarely mentioned. Happiness, it turns out, is a universal value that is far more important to people than material wealth.
¹³
Money may be desirable, but it cannot buy you trust or help you develop positive emotions—elements that are essential for achieving satisfaction. In his book
The Social Animal
, David Brooks argues that a person who is happy in their job but has a bad family and social life is much worse off than someone who struggles at work but has a great family life.

In reality, the stress created by focusing too much on money can literally threaten our lives. To quote a 2010 study conducted at the University of Liège, “Money impairs people’s ability to savor everyday positive emotions and experiences.”
¹⁴
The study found that wealthier individuals had far more difficulty enjoying their lives than people who earned moderate amounts of income.

Situational Values

As you experiment with the inner values exercise, you’ll find that the results will change and evolve over time. Specific events—such as marriage, divorce, or becoming a parent—can dramatically alter our values, for better or for worse. For example, a nasty divorce may cause a child to view marriage suspiciously, but it can liberate a spouse to find a partner who shares similar values and beliefs.

Furthermore, a life-threatening event will make most people revise their values in ways that bring them greater satisfaction.
¹⁵
Even reflecting on death tends to shift values away from greed and toward unselfish and caring behavior.
¹⁶

In our research there are two variations of the inner values exercise that people have found to be useful. If you take a moment to reflect on the following questions, you’ll see that the answers are different from the ones relating to innermost values: what is my deepest relationship
value, and what is my deepest communication
value?

Most people have similar responses to these questions. For the relationship value, the most common words chosen are “kindness” and “trust.” For the communication value, it’s the desire to be listened to with respect and to be spoken to with honesty and warmth. If we consciously exercise these values whenever we engage in dialogue, the odds of conflict are strongly reduced, even when we are interacting with people we dislike or distrust.

I’ll give you an example of what occurred when Mark was called into an executive board meeting to negotiate a heated dispute. The organization was a psychology training center, and the issue concerned the expression of anger. One group of therapists believed that the honest expression of anger was essential for the healing process. The other group, comprised mostly of the corporate leadership staff, believed that tact and diplomacy were paramount.

The leaders of the two factions could not compromise, and a stalemate had been reached. Mark asked each leader what their innermost personal value was, what their deepest relationship value was, and what their deepest communication value was. Sam, the proponent of tactfulness, went first, and his three words were “love,” “compassion,” and “gentleness.” Jill, who strongly believed in the need to “get the garbage out,” as she referred to the psychological theory of emotional release, had a somewhat different list: “kindness,” “integrity,” and “honesty.”

“Perfect!” Mark said. “Do you both respect the other person’s values?”

They nodded in approval.

“Then, Jill, I want you to continue your argument with Sam, but you have to honor both Sam’s and your own set of values. I want you to express your anger honestly but with love, compassion, kindness, and gentleness.”

She couldn’t do it, because it’s impossible to express anger, resentment, or for that matter any negative emotion, in a kind and productive way. Two months later, Jill resigned, and the company has continued to flourish.

Inner Values in Personal Relationships

When people share their personal, relationship, and communication values with each other
before
discussing a difficult issue, they are more likely to remain emotionally calm and centered. Such discussions have been shown to be particularly useful for improving communication in couples counseling, because it derails feelings of anger, distrust, and contempt before they creep into the dialogue. Here’s an example of how James Walton, Ph.D., a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, uses the inner values exercise in his practice:

With my patients, I have them contemplate their deepest value for two minutes every day between sessions. Those that have done so have experienced some amazing transformations. When working with couples, I have them explore the role that personal values play in the relationship and how, if we violate those values, it creates problems. With my clients, love and compassion are the most common values reported.